


Kid Things

by sowell



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-25
Packaged: 2017-12-13 00:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sowell/pseuds/sowell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 years after graduation, Logan comes back to Neptune to ask Veronica for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

_This does not mean you’re still in love with him_ , Veronica told herself for the hundredth time, checking the GPS navigation system on her dashboard.  _This is not an indication of any feelings whatsoever. This is strictly business._ She rehearsed it in her mind again. She would walk in, let him explain whatever screwed-up situation he was in this time, and then do one of two things: If he could pay the usual fee and it was a workable case, she would hand it off to her father. If he was broke, or had made too much of a mess for her to clean up, she would congratulate him on a life well and truly fucked and walk right back out the door.

She took a shaky breath. It was risky, but she had a plan. Rule 1: Do not make small talk. Logan loved to talk. Do not ask/answer his questions about the weather, her job, her boyfriend, or his decorating scheme. It had to be pure business, in and out. Rule 2: Do not taunt him about his inability to live a functional life. If you snap at Logan, he will snap back, and she learned long ago that in a verbal tousle with Logan she almost always came away limping. Rule 3: Do not, in any way, shape, or form, let him bring up the past. It will lead to arguments and accusations and she will end up tossing and turning all night, stewing over his jackassery, and that wasn’t the purpose of this visit. This was business, pure and simple.

If she could just stick to the rules, she’d be fine.

The address he gave her led her to a modest bed and breakfast on the outskirts of Neptune. It was an overly quaint little establishment, consciously low-key in the middle of the glitzy hotels and high rises that the area favored. A weekend there cost more than a month’s rent on her apartment, but the customers paid for discretion and quality service, not glamour. It was a place for people who were looking for luxury, but wanted to avoid exposure. Logan had a lot of experience doing just that.  
  
 _"Hello?"_  The number on her caller ID had been blocked. Jeff always told her not to pick up blocked calls, because they were usually telemarketers. She couldn’t help it; she was a creature of curiosity. A mystery call was always more enticing than knowing who was on the other end. Jesus, she wished she had listened to him this time around.  
  
 _"Veronica."_  Her blood had stopped moving, and her vision had gone a little blurry, spinning her apartment around her in a ferris wheel of shock.  
  
 _"Who is this?"_  She knew who it was, of course. But she had no intention of letting him know the sound of his voice was still imprinted on her cells. Five years of separation hadn’t changed that.  
  
 _"Veronica, I need your help."_  He wouldn’t give her any details on the phone. His voice had been uncharacteristically hushed when he gave her the address and asked her to hurry. She should have hung up on him. There wasn’t even a thread of familiarity connecting them anymore, and she certainly didn’t owe him anything.

She cancelled her dinner plans, got in her car, and headed toward him.  
  
 _What the fuck am I doing?_  She hesitated outside the door to his room, twisting the platinum band on her finger around and around. It was a small sapphire, studded with diamonds, because Jeff said a plain diamond ring was too bland for her, and he loved the way she looked in blue. She hadn’t worn it until tonight. Tonight, it was protection.   
  
 _Just business_ , shereminded herself, and lifted a fist to knock. The door opened before her knuckles even touched wood, and he was standing there, an intent look in his eyes.

She thought her first glance of Logan Echolls in five years would be life changing in some way. But his form in the doorway looked disconcertingly familiar, more like the boy she went to high school with than the philandering playboy all the tabloids painted him as. She assumed five years of partying in LA would have left their mark somewhere on him. He should look wasted away, or prematurely haggard, or have that vapid desperation she saw in the eyes of drugged-up celebrity mug shots. But he was the same: dark hair, golden skin, sulky mouth, and that lean, flamboyant grace that was particular to his body. The only thing that struck her as odd was the sober expression on his face. Then the corner of his mouth kicked up, and…there.  _There_  was the smug expression that made her palms itch to slap him.

 _"_ Miss me?" he asked.

"Pining away," she said tightly. "You said it was an emergency."

"You have no idea." He stepped back and gestured her through the doorway.

She glanced around his room. It was decked out in pink and tan floral patterns, a riot of spring color. There was a kitchenette in one corner, complete with microwave and mini-fridge, and several doors lined the back wall. The bathroom and the bedroom, she was guessing. The place was designed to look country, but it probably had Egyptian cotton sheets on the bed and pure gold trim in the bathtub. It looked a like a house her mother would have designed: homey and cheerful and soft. Logan ruined the effect entirely, standing against the wall like a patch of soil in an otherwise thriving garden. She opened her mouth to make a smart remark about the girly surroundings, but at the last minute remembered that interior decorations were an off-limit topic. Right. All business.

"From your tone, I was expecting a dead body," she said dryly. "What’s with the cloak and dagger?"

Logan pulled open the mini-fridge. "Drama runs in my family. Soda? Or do you drink big-girl drinks now?"

She felt a flash of irritation. "You said you needed my help. Talk."

He poured himself a drink of…something alcoholic. She didn’t know what; she didn’t care. "Oh, I need your help. But I’d hate to be rude," he said lightly. "I haven’t even asked what you’re doing these days. Still living vicariously through your camera lens?"

"Still whoring your way through Orange County?" her mouth shot back before her brain could catch up. So much for not taunting him. Rule 2, out the window. She braced herself for his comeback, but he just laughed.

"You don’t have to be jealous. I imagined this visit in a purely professional capacity, but if you want to give it another go…"

"Once was more than enough," she snapped. "What the  _hell_  are you doing in Neptune, Logan?"

He held out a can of soda and she shook her head. He picked up her hand and forcibly placed the icy drink in her palm, then stopped. She tried to pull away, but his long fingers just tightened around her wrist. He raised it for a closer look, running a caressing thumb over her engagement ring.

He let out a low whistle. "I heard you were seeing somebody, but I didn’t know you managed to trick the poor sucker into proposing. You’ve gotten better since college."

"You’ve gotten more obnoxious," she gritted. "Let me go." Entertaining boyfriend talk was bad. Entertaining boyfriend talk was breaking Rule 1 on a very dangerous level.

"He must be one hell of a minion if you’re willing to shackle yourself for life. Did you reserve your right to yank him around by the balls as part of the marriage deal?"

"The only deal was that I don’t find him in bed with other women. Unlike some people, he didn’t seem to mind." And…that was the end of Rule 3. Her professional resolve smashed to bits in less than two minutes. That must be some sort of record.

She shook his hand off her wrist and set the soda down. She took a couple of deep breaths, trying not to concentrate on his smirking face. It was scary, how easily they fell back into this pattern. It had been five years, and they still couldn’t be civil to each other. She should have listened to her gut instinct and to hell with her curiosity. This was a Very. Bad. Idea.

She allowed herself a last glare at him. "Color me unsurprised that you haven’t grown up a bit in the last five years. Have a nice life." She turned and headed for the door.

"Wait a second." He beat her to the door, holding it shut with one hand. "You can’t leave me here. I’m in deep shit." He looked down at her, eyes suddenly pleading.

"You seem fine to me," she said flatly.

He ran a hand through his hair. "I’m not. I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t an emergency."

"If you have time to hurl insults at me then it can’t be too pressing."

He slid in front of her, shifting his whole weight against the door so she couldn’t open it. She found herself facing the expanse of his chest an inch away from her nose. "Just give me five minutes to explain. If you don’t want to help then I’ll leave you alone. I promise."

"That means less than nothing coming from you."

His expression darkened, and she got the uncomfortable notion she might have hurt his feelings. If he had any feelings left after twenty-four numbing years of alcohol, drugs, and anonymous sex. "If you help me out I’ll disappear when this is over. It will be like I never existed," he said, and there was a hint of bitterness in his words.

"If only that were true," she muttered.

She faced off with him for a minute. No matter what, they always ended up like this: nose to nose, clenched fists, granite jaws. She felt a little tremor in her stomach, and she realized with a spurt of dismay that it was anticipation. Logan’s eyes darted over her shoulder for a split second, and she whirled.

A little boy was standing in the bedroom of the second doorway, clutching at a blanket. Veronica felt all the breath suck out of her body. The kid was three, maybe four years old. Sandy hair, hazel eyes, round cheeks, and a baby bow of a mouth with just a hint of sulk to it. He stared back at her, silent and solemn.  _Oh God_. Her stomach started churning, her brain trying to process this. It was one thing to read about Logan working his way through the roster of young starlets – it was quite another to see the evidence in front of her.

She spun back to him. "This is the problem you wanted me to take care of?" she hissed. "His two-bit prostitute of a mother left him and you want me to – what? Find him a home? Make him go away?" Her voice was shaking; her entire body was shaking. "I can’t believe I thought you might be in real trouble. God, I can’t believe I forgot what a selfish  _prick_  you are."

Logan’s eyebrows snapped together. "Gee," he drawled. "Accusations. I knew something was missing from this little visit."

"Are you asking for  _sympathy_?" she asked, outraged. "You came to the wrong place. I’m not cleaning this up for you."

"You were right about the two-bit whore," Logan said abruptly. "He’s Trina’s."

The rush of relief that swept through her was so dizzying that she grabbed for the back of the couch to steady herself. She felt like her heart had slammed back into place after being peeled out of her chest. Logan was watching her closely.

"Trina’s missing."

 


	2. Chapter Two

She was hating this, Logan thought, watching Veronica wrap two hands around her soda can. She hadn’t opened it; she kept rolling it around in her palm, passing it from hand to hand, keeping it constantly in motion. Every time she set it down he saw her hands tremble. He had been half-expecting an apology from her for assuming the kid was his. Clearly he’d been out of his mind.

"How did he end up with you?" she asked, her forehead wrinkling up like the thought of him and a toddler in the same room was some kind of universal paradox.

Fair enough.

"I came home three days ago and he was sitting on my bed. I was drunk – "

"Of course you were," she cut in.

"I thought I walked into the wrong apartment," he said through clenched teeth. "Then I found the note."  _Take care of him, little brother_ , it had said in Trina’s blunt, boyish handwriting.

Veronica shook her head, shiny blonde hair swinging around her shoulders. "How can you not know your sister had a baby?"

"We’re not exactly Donny and Marie," he said wearily. "I hadn’t seen her since I left Neptune."

"But to hide him from the tabloids…."

He shrugged. "Maybe the father got sick of taking care of him. Maybe she paid some doctor to make it disappear. Maybe she was so coked up she forgot she even had a kid. Who knows?"

She kept stealing glances at the sofa where the kid sat in front of the TV. Bringing him along was definitely one of his smarter moves. If Logan was alone she might have just walked away, but seeing this kid’s tiny little body in the flesh…well, that presented her with a moral obligation. It wasn’t compassion – it was that mystifying need she had to fix things she thought were broken. Misaligned. An innocent kid left to his clumsy ministrations wasn’t an injustice she could ignore.

The boy was watching some shitty Lifetime program that he probably couldn’t even understand. Logan would have demanded cartoons, but this kid hadn’t demanded anything as of yet. For the last three days he ate the cereal Logan put in front of him, sat where Logan told him to sit, and went to sleep when Logan put him under the covers. He hadn’t said a word; he just stared at Logan out of Trina’s eyes until Logan wanted to tape his eyelids shut. To his frustration, Trina hadn’t left an owner’s manual of any sort. To his chagrin, Trina  _had_  left a week’s worth of training diapers. Logan hadn’t even thought about it until the kid started to smell. He no longer blamed his mother for hiring a nanny to change his diapers.

"What’s his name?" Veronica asked, not taking his eyes off of the boy. His nephew. Logan had to get used to that.

Logan shrugged. "No clue. He won’t talk. You know, I think he may be retarded. I wouldn’t put it past Trina to give birth to a crack baby."

The look she shot him was so disgusted that he had to bite down on a grin. Baiting Veronica Mars never seemed to lose its charm. "Did you try asking him?"

"Yes, miss mother-of-the-year, I tried asking him. He just stares at you."

Veronica walked over to the TV and flicked off the sound. The kid obediently turned his face to her as she kneeled in front of him.

"Hi," she said, raising her voice a notch the way people do when they’re cooing at infants or puppies. "I’m Veronica. What’s your name?" she tried. Logan smirked at the kid’s silence. "Can you tell me your name?" Nothing.  
 _  
Atta boy,_  he thought _. Don’t fall for her tricks._

She tried a different tack. "Can you tell me how old you are?" The boy was starting to look a little upset now, and Veronica eased back a couple inches. "You don’t have to talk," she said reassuringly. "Are you this many?" She held up four fingers. The kid blinked at her. She folded one finger down. "Are you this many?" The kid held her stare for a couple more seconds before slowly reaching out and folding his chubby little hand around Veronica’s three fingers. "Are you three?" she asked hopefully. He nodded, and she smiled so beautifully that Logan forgot about the drink in his hand until it started to spill over the side of the glass.

"Do you want to tell me your name?" she asked again. "You don’t have to. Only if you want to."

This time the kid opened his mouth and said in the softest of voices, "Percy Echolls."

Logan didn’t know why he was so stunned. He’d seen Veronica extract information from people in a thousand varied and sneaky ways. He didn’t know why a three-year-old should be any different. Hell, he’d probably zip his soul open too if she were looking at him with that soft concern in her eyes. But damn it – it took her three minutes to accomplish what he hadn’t been able to do in three days.

"It’s nice to meet you," Veronica said solemnly. "I’d like to be your friend. Is that ok?" The kid – Percy – considered her for a second, then nodded. Veronica smiled again. "Thanks, Percy."

She flicked the sound back on the television and came back to the table. "Now we have a name," she said firmly.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I can run some background searches. There might be a birth certificate, hospital records, something else that could be useful." She pushed her hair back in a stuttered, weary motion, and her ring glinted in the light. Her fucking engagement ring.

"Swell," he said. "He’ll be back in my sister’s cold, heartless arms in no time."

"Not so fast," she said. Her face had gone hard again. He hadn’t set eyes on her for five years, but he still felt the sting of that expression every time he screwed up in a particularly massive way. When he woke up in a jail cell, when he came off of a two week bender, or when he sat in the middle of his apartment floor, shaking for no reason at all besides a violent need to get out of his own skin – Veronica’s steely eyes followed him, reminding him that, no, he wasn’t fooling anybody.

"This is a case," she informed him. "Not a favor between old friends."

"Now I’m a friend? I’ve gone up a notch in the last hour. Also, the correct term is old lovers."

She didn’t even blink. "It’s a $5000 flat fee plus expenses."

"Ah, how I’ve missed your pillow talk."

"It will go through Mars Investigations. You’ll have to come by tomorrow and sign a contract."

"Hold up a second. A contract for what?"

"The first half is a non-refundable down payment. You pay the second half when I find her."

"And if you don’t find her?"

Her face said,  _Bitch, please_. Her mouth said, "Then you don’t have to pay."

"What about her brat? I can’t take care of him."

"Not my problem." She sounded amused. "I’ll be at my father’s office tomorrow morning. I realize it will be difficult to drag yourself out of bed before noon, but I only work half days now."

"When you’re not taking pictures for the San Pedro County Tribune," he said politely. "I know."

"Keeping tabs?" she asked smoothly.

"I did my research before I called you," he said comfortably. "Like you said – it’s just a job."

Her mouth thinned to a tight line, and he wondered wearily if she was pissed because of his comments or because he had checked up on her. He hoped it was the former, but had a feeling it was the latter. For someone who pried into other people’s business for a living, she had a hell of a nerve being so sensitive about her own privacy. Of course, what did he know? Privacy was as distant a concept to him as moon walking. Or loving parents.

It hadn’t taken much effort to find out she was still doing PI work for her father. She was something of a local celebrity in Neptune although, unlike him, she missed out on the fun experience of having paparazzi waiting around every bend. Everyone saw her photos in the paper, everyone knew she could be found on weekends at the new Mars Investigations office downtown. Everyone knew she was dating the story editor Jeffrey Polkowski.

He didn’t like it. He had no intention of trying to get her back – he was done with little blonde dynamos with four-inch claws. But still, he didn’t like to think of her picking out curtains and china patterns for someone else’s house. He  _really_ didn’t like to think of her in someone else’s bed, and  _fuck_ , he hated that she still had the power to bother him at all.

Percy had fallen asleep on the couch, just tilted over sideways like he was a block of wood, and Veronica knelt down in front of him again, studying him. "He looks like Trina," she said softly. "I thought for a second…but he really looks like Trina."

Logan realized that was the closest to an apology he was going to get for her jumping to conclusions. He’d take it. "I’d say I hope that’s all he inherited from her," he said matter-of-factly, "but we don’t know who the father is. Given Trina’s taste in men, even her messed-up DNA might be the lesser of two evils." He picked the kid up against his hip, like he had for the last three nights, and Percy’s head dropped against his shoulder. "Any parental advice you feel like sharing?" he asked, awkwardly trying to balance the dead weight in his arms.

Veronica was staring at the two of them with a strangely arrested expression on her face. She gave her head a little shake and seemed to snap out of it.

"Try to keep him alive until tomorrow," she said.

"So maternal," he cooed. She shot him one parting glare and marched her way out of the room, always off to battle.

Well, that had gone better than expected. She might hate him, but she had agreed to help him, for whatever reason. When he left Neptune he was determined not to come back. LA had good surfing and free booze and fun drugs and more than enough distraction to curtail whatever impulse he had to see his home or Veronica. He was almost famous, thanks to his fucking asshole of a father, and that’s all anyone was looking for in LA. He gave in a few drunken nights and called her during that first year away, but she never picked up. Eventually he learned that when all he could think about was blue eyes and baby blonde hair, it was best to just find another blonde to play with.

He had been fine for five years.

Of course, the first time an excuse presented itself he had had hopped in his car and driven up to confront her, but that was beside the point.

The excuse in his arms shifted and made a little noise in his sleep, and Logan settled him under the covers of his king-sized bed. The kid looked like a little pebble in the middle of the expanse of flowered sheets, but Logan didn’t know where else to put him. The first night he left him on the couch and the kid had fallen right off. Maybe he still slept in a crib. How the hell was Logan supposed to know?

So now Percy claimed the only bedroom and Logan got to sleep on the couch that was too short for him. Kids sucked.

He poured the remainder of his drink down the drain, because once he started getting drunk he might not be able to stop, and he didn’t need a hangover to make tomorrow even worse. Veronica’s image was dancing behind his eyes, like it had been every night since he realized he was going back to Neptune. If he weren’t babysitting he would go out, find a bar, and go home with the first girl who put a hand on his thigh, but that option was out of the question at the moment.

He tried to think of someone else to jerk off to – anything, even the latest Maxim spread, but her face wouldn’t go away. He saw her five years ago, flushed cheeks and blonde hair and vibrating laughter as she arched under him. Jesus, why could he still remember the way she smelled when he couldn’t even remember the face of the girl he took home last Saturday? He stroked himself until he came, hands shaking, hating himself and her and this whole goddamn place.

Welcome back to Neptune.


	3. Chapter Three

"Ok, we’re going to see Veronica again," Logan informed his wide-eyed nephew, tugging the laces on his tiny sneakers. "Now, I know she’s a bitch, but we’re just going to have to deal with it until she finds your mom. Ok?" Percy munched on his Fruit Loops in response. "Why couldn’t Trina have left a puppy?" Logan muttered.

He had woken up cramped and chilly on the couch with Percy’s hazel eyes an inch away from his face. "Hungry," the kid had said. It was the first time he’d voluntarily opened his mouth since Trina left him. Logan desperately did not want to wonder about this child. The first night there had been bruises all over his arms and a healed cigarette burn on the back of his hand. The thought that Trina might…that she would allow…no. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He wouldn’t think about it. He didn’t want to look at his nephew and see his own childhood. It made him want to hunt Trina down and kill her himself.

"Percy is a shitty name," he informed his nephew conversationally, tying the other shoe. "Leave it to Trina to pick the most pretentious name in the book. Luckily for you, your uncle is cooler than that. How do you feel about Grand Master P? You’ll be the most badass orphan in Neptune. Except for me, of course."

Grand Master P stopped chewing. "Mommy gone?"

Shit. He  _would_  get the hard questions. To the kid’s credit, he didn’t look scared or even particularly interested. His eyes were mildly curious, and Logan wondered in sudden fury how many times Trina had left him before.

"Yes," he said flatly, because he only bothered to lie when he got some personal benefit out of it. "I’m taking care of you."

"Daddy?" Percy asked hopefully. Great. Why couldn’t the kid have turned chatty when Veronica was here to help him navigate the minefield? Wait, scratch that. She probably would have just sat there laughing her ass off.

"I’m your Uncle Logan, your mom’s slightly less slutty younger brother."

"Mommy coming back?"

"She’s coming back," Logan promised. "If I have to drag her by her Gucci purse."

He hoisted the kid up again, grimacing at the weight. He finally understood those goofy-looking baby carriers that moms wore. Not his mom, of course, but he bet Keith Mars wore one around Neptune proudly.

"If you see a big guy with no hair walking around the detective office, scream like a banshee," he told Percy grimly. "Unless you want to see Uncle Logan get his teeth bashed in." To his surprise, Percy locked his little arms around his neck, holding on for dear life as he took them down the stairs.

*****

Veronica was sitting behind the receptionist desk when he walked in. The new office was wall-to-wall windows and soft gray carpeting, and it looked more like a modeling firm than a detective agency. He missed the old place with its dark corners and that ass-ugly sofa where he used to kiss Veronica for hours, trying not to get caught by Keith.

Last night she looked like she was ready for a date – black skirt and makeup and hair in perfect, hot-iron-induced waves. Today her hair was pulled up in a messy little bun and she was in jeans and about four layered t-shirts and she looked very small and like she was still seventeen. That damn ring was still on her finger. She probably thought she was protecting herself from his lechery, dressing like she was headed off to pep rally. He liked her better this way.

"You brought him?" she asked, wrinkling up her nose.

"My nanny is on vacation," he said sarcastically.

"I guess I see your point."

He set the kid on the floor, and Veronica squatted down to his level. "Do you remember me from last night?" she asked.

"Veronica," Percy said shyly, tripping a little over the syllables, and clung to his leg. Logan stared down at him, mystified.

Veronica arched an eyebrow. "You two seem to have bonded."

"Yeah, well, I have a way with people."

Veronica rolled her eyes. "It’s a way, all right. Ok, Percy? See that corner over there?" She pointed to a corner in the waiting room stacked with blocks and board books and all the stuffed animals a three-year-old could want. "Why don’t you go play for a while? We’ll be right here."

The kid tugged hard on Logan’s pant leg. "Play with me."

Really, his new status as best friend was a little bewildering. Logan reached down and physically unhooked his small fingers. "Later, Master P. Veronica and Uncle Logan need to talk."

The kid’s face screwed up for a second, like he might cry, but then he turned and moped to the corner. Logan felt mingled pity and relief. He needed this kid out of his hair, fast.

Veronica was still watching Percy. "Hey Uncle Logan, why is he wearing the same clothes as last night?"

"He only came with one set."

"He needs a change of clothes," she said, appalled. "Haven’t you washed them?"

"It’s not like we’ve been mud wrestling. He’s the neatest kid I’ve ever seen."

"Logan, that’s gross. Have you even given him a bath yet?"

"He’s welcome to my shower any time he wants."

He watched Veronica physically reign in her frustration. "What the hell was Trina thinking, leaving her son with  _you_?"

"Feel free to take over, supermom. Until then can we sit the fuck down and figure out where my tramp of a sister went?"

She huffed behind the desk and sat down at the computer. "First, I’m going to need a check."

He slid a $2500 check across the desk, and she studied it for a long minute, probably looking for signs that it was counterfeit.

"Did I drop food on it or something?"

"No, I’m just surprised you have this much left over. From what I hear you’ve been living on prostitutes and $1000 bottles of champagne for five years."

"You seem awfully knowledgeable about how I spend my time. Do I sense a little crush?" Her cheeks flushed, from anger or embarrassment, and satisfaction licked up his spine.

"Really though," she forged on obnoxiously. "Have you learned to love the frugal life or did you – dare I say it? – get a job?"

Instead of answering he picked up a pen from the desk and started tapping it, watching her pretend indifference. Her tone was biting, but he could hear the curiosity behind it. It lightened his heart a little, to realize she hadn’t cut him out of her thoughts as completely as she’d like him to believe.

"Neither," he said finally. "I made our FBLA teacher proud and invested. My father’s money now works for me."

Her eyebrows shot up in momentary surprise. "Seriously? I never pegged you as the stock market type."

"That’s why God made financial planners. I’m Casablancas Consulting’s most valued customer."

Her jaw just about hit the floor. "You gave your money to  _Dick_? Exactly what kind of drugs are you taking?"

"Wrong again, sweetheart. I gave my money to Kendall. She took Beaver’s profits and ran. She’s making millions off of other people’s millions, and you’re still scrounging off of seedy affairs. I bet you never thought you’d be outclassed by a gold-digging trophy wife." He infused his words with as much malice as possible. He’d observed Kendall’s rise to power with glee, if only because she was exactly what the fat, smug Neptune moguls deserved. He may have hated her at times, but he never mistook her for brainless.

Veronica’s face went blank as soon he said Kendall’s name. He resisted the urge to push harder, mainly because he knew it wouldn’t do any good. When Veronica’s face smoothed out like a marble statue it meant the topic at hand was officially off limits. He’d learned that lesson the hard way. If there was one thing that would get him thrown him out of this office, it was trying to open up a conversation about the brunette she found in his hotel suite. The  _first_  brunette she found there. The second one was what had finally ended things between them, and even he didn’t want to talk about that. He didn’t sleep with brunettes any more.

She tapped a couple keys on her computer with her small, strong hands. "He was born at LA Memorial three years ago on July 23. His last name isn’t really Echolls. Trina wasn’t married when she had him, but his official name is Percy Jonathan Sewell. A Mr. Jonathan Sewell, who I’m assuming is the father, co-signed the birth certificate. He’s living in LA, so tomorrow I’m going to pay him a visit, see if he knows anything about Trina’s whereabouts."

Logan raised an eyebrow. "Or maybe wants his son back."

Veronica looked uncomfortable. "It’s not really…the nicest part of the city. Even if Sewell is the father, I don’t know if you’re going to want to leave Percy there."

"Watch me."

Her jaw thrust out. "You’re really amazing, you know that? Every time I think I’ve seen you hit rock bottom, you manage to sink just a little lower."

She took a calming breath, slim shoulders shifting under the cotton of her shirt. God, she was so tiny. He could span the width of her shoulders with one stretch of his hand. It was easy to forget when she wasn’t right in front of him. In his mind she was this great, all-consuming, manipulative bitch of a dragon. But he was reminded for the first time in five years that she was just a girl, barely out of college, and she had no more superpowers than he did. They were both tossed into the same crappy pool of life; it wasn’t her fault she could swim like a champ and he just floundered around uselessly. It wasn’t her fault if she didn’t want to let him pull her under, too.

A familiar voice cut into his mooning. "Hey honey, I saw your car out front. What are you doing here this early on a – " Keith Mars stopped at the sight of Logan sitting across the desk from Veronica. Then again, who needed superpowers when they had Keith as a father?

"Logan," Keith greeted him coolly. "I didn’t realize you were back in town."  
 _  
Better brush up on those PI skills..._  But Keith was one of the only people on earth who still had the ability to scare him, so he said, "Yes, sir. Just arrived yesterday."

"And you came straight to see Veronica," Keith said smoothly, eyes like steel. "How nice." He may as well have said "Stay the fuck away from my daughter you psychotic little shithead." Then he saw Percy playing in the corner. The look he flashed Logan had no false congeniality in it.

"Veronica. My office. Now." He shoved open his office door and pointed her inside, never taking his eyes off Logan. Logan felt his nerves jump in spite of his resolve.

Veronica was looking a little nervous herself. "Just, stay here," she murmured. "Let me handle it."

That sounded fine to Logan. He could hear their raised voices through the wall, but he couldn’t make out any words, and that was fine, too. It didn’t take a lot of imagination to guess Keith’s feelings for him, and Logan didn’t really care. On the other hand, he would have liked to hear Veronica scramble to justify her decision to help him.

He slouched down further in his seat and glanced at Percy. His nephew’s eyes were even rounder than usual as he stared at the door through which Keith and Veronica had disappeared. Logan wondered idly if he had been witness to many screaming matches in his short life. It seemed likely, from the way he winced every time a voice penetrated the waiting room. God knew Trina could screech with the best of them. When Logan was little and his parents were having a particularly vocal fight – before his mom had stopped fighting altogether, of course – his nanny would always get out a book and read to him. It never made him forget what was happening, but it was better than staring at the wall and just…listening to it happen. Logan wasn’t really the reading type, but…

He beckoned Percy out of the corner. "Hey kid. Want to hear a story?"

By the time Veronica came out of her dad’s office Logan was seated firmly in her chair with Percy on his lap, zipping through all the digital photos on her laptop.

He pointed at a picture of a Neptune socialite kissing what looked like her personal trainer outside the Camelot. "And then the beautiful princess cheated on her husband the king, because the royal tennis pro was a better lay," he narrated solemnly. "The king was very, very angry, because he spent a lot of money on the princess and he didn’t want anyone else enjoying her, uh, crown." He pointed at a picture of the glowering, portly, jilted husband.

"Fat," Percy said, stabbing a finger at the husband’s belly.

"Yeah, he really is," Logan agreed.

"Logan!" Veronica snatched up the laptop. "Those are confidential files."

"Seriously," he said in mock disappointment. "You really shouldn’t leave your laptop open like that. Bad workplace etiquette."

"The end?" asked Percy.

"I’ll finish it later," Logan told him, shifting him off of his lap. "When Veronica turns her back."

"Which will be never again," she said, exasperated, but there was a hint of laughter in her eyes.

Logan nodded toward Keith’s closed door. "Should I be expecting Vincent Vega waiting in my hotel room?"

Veronica sighed. "I think I managed to convince him my virtue is safe from you. Really, I suspect he just feels bad for Percy." She gazed at Percy where he’d gone back to playing in the corner. "What has Trina been doing?" she wondered softly. "How could she just leave him?"

"How can you even ask that after what happened with our moms?" Logan muttered.

She touched his shoulder gently, and he felt the dangerous tenderness of it all the way down to his toes. "Logan, if Trina just dropped him and disappeared, she may be running from something. She might be in trouble, or she could be…" she trailed off.

He had considered the possibility that she was dead, of course, but hearing Veronica say it out loud made him slightly nauseous. Trina meant next to nothing to him, but she was the only family he had left. He assumed she would always be there, annoying and bitchy and generally invasive, but still the same sister who pranced around his house for the first fifteen years of his life.

"Yeah," he choked out. "I know."

He shrugged her hand off his shoulder, shrugged off the melancholy that her words brought on. "What time are we going tomorrow?"

She raised her eyebrows. " _We_  are not going at all."

"I don’t think your father would approve of me sending you into a dangerous part of LA without some protection."

"So why would I need you there?" she said, tilting her head in a challenge.

He pinched her chin. "Cute. I’m going."

"Logan, don’t be an idiot. Someone needs to watch your nephew."

He shrugged. "He can come. It will be like a field trip for him. Early childhood education."

"I’m not taking a toddler into the East End. No responsible human being would take a toddler into the East End." There was no missing the insinuation in her voice.

"Fine," he said sharply. "I’ll hire a babysitter. But I want to talk to this guy." He could see her struggling. It didn’t matter; he was going even if he had to pry the address from her sharp little fingers.

"Fine," she said in a clipped voice. "Meet me in front of the office tomorrow at 9. If you’re a minute late I’m leaving without you."

"Pleasure doing business, as always," he said mockingly. In his annoyance, he was halfway through the door before he remembered the kid. Shit. Percy was watching him walk out with a look somewhere between wistful and resigned, like he’d been expecting it all along. And when the hell did he start caring if the kid was sad, or happy, or even breathing?

"Look alive, Master P," he said impatiently, and held out his hand. Percy scrambled over to him and grabbed it tight enough to hurt, and Logan got the sinking feeling he was in very deep shit with this kid stuff.

Veronica was watching the two of them with the same frozen expression she’d had last night. He hefted Percy onto his shoulder again and jangled his keys in Veronica’s direction.

"Hey, supermom. Where exactly does one purchase baby clothes in Neptune?"


	4. Chapter Four

  _This does not mean you like him,_  Veronica thought to herself.  _You still definitely, 100% think he’s an asshole and a lunatic._  She wasn’t exactly sure how he’d talked her into this, except that he had a way of turning his eyes to velvet that was too adorable to ignore. Too  _annoying_  to ignore. She meant annoying. That, and he made a good case that he would probably mess the whole thing up on his own. They were each pushing a stroller through the Neptune City Plaza, and it felt far too domestic for her comfort level. Logan’s stroller held a bouncing Percy. He kept lunging forward and pointing at different people with an excited, "Look!"

Veronica’s stroller held the $3000-plus in merchandise that Logan had purchased for his nephew. There were bags upon bags of designer baby clothes, toys, and games. Veronica calmly tried to explain to Logan that little kids didn’t care if their clothes came from The Gap, Prada or Walmart. He informed her, just as calmly, that he had never set foot inside a Walmart and he wasn’t about to ruin his perfect record now.

They got a few whispers and stares from people who recognized Logan, but if he noticed, he didn’t say anything about it. Veronica wondered, not for the first time, how he learned to deal with the attention. With perfect strangers who felt entitled to know his entire life story, to comment on his every move. Even before he started making headlines himself, his father’s fame had put him in the spotlight. Veronica thought she would have gone stark raving mad.

It was interesting to see how he shopped. Duncan’s mother always did the shopping for him, and Lilly got a kick out of foraging at the Salvation Army, so she never really got to see how rich kids spent money in public. It was all very  _Pretty Woman_. Logan would walk into a store, flash some plastic and a smarmy smile, and the salesperson would scurry to present product after product for him and Percy to examine. All he had to do was point, and the item would be wrapped, bagged, and waiting for them at checkout.

The result was a stroller full of overpriced miniature sweaters, polo shirts, t-shirts, khakis, and few hideous pairs of brightly colored sneakers that she hadn’t been able to talk him out of. She was barely able to talk him out of buying a crib.

"He takes up the whole damn bed," Logan complained. "I’m sick of sleeping on the couch."

"Yeah, it sounds like you’re really roughing it. He’ll be gone in a week. Do you really want to spend that much money for one week?"

"Fucking kid," Logan grumbled.

They walked past the food court, and Percy’s eyes lit up. "McDonald’s!" Logan raised an eyebrow at her.

She shouldn’t be here. She’d agreed to help Logan because he could pay the fee, and because she couldn’t, in good conscience, leave this little kid to his screwed-up Echolls fate. But finding Trina did not require her to call in sick to the Tribune and take a last-minute sojourn to the mall. It didn’t require her to waste three hours watching Trina’s brother spend money like it was water and re-memorizing his expressive face. He had a perpetually surprised look in his eyes when he glanced at Percy, like he was baffled by his own affection for his nephew. Veronica could sympathize with that. She was a little baffled by it, too. He was the least competent caregiver Veronica had ever seen, but Percy clung to him like a limpet. She couldn’t help it – she was fascinated.

"McDonald’s," Percy said, a little more forcefully. "Want McDonald’s."

"I could eat," she heard herself say, and tried not to get caught up in the intent way he was studying her.

Twenty minutes later they were parked at a hard plastic table in the middle of the teeming food court. Percy was cheerfully shoving his happy meal in his mouth, and she had finished her own order of BBQ ribs and was starting on Logan’s.

He whisked his plate off the table, out of her reach. "You eat like a pig, Mars. Go buy another plate of your own."

"That is my plate. I’m tacking lunch onto your fee," she said sweetly.

He snorted. "You should be paying  _me_ to watch you eat. You have BBQ sauce on your face."

"So do you," she told him, and painted a stripe of greasy BBQ sauce down his cheek with her thumb.

He froze, staring at her like she was nuts, and she calmly reached over and grabbed a napkin to hide the fact that her hands were suddenly trembling. She wiped her mouth, then nodded at his BBQ-streaked face. "Best see to that, A-1," she suggested.

He watched her as he slowly wiped his face.  _What am I doing?_  she thought, panicked.  _What the hell am I doing, flirting with Logan?_  Last time had been disaster, and things were infinitely more complicated now. She had the beginning of a career and an almost-fiancée, both of which he could screw up royally. This was not smart. She needed to be running full steam in the other direction right about now.

But there was something magnetic about him. It wasn’t charm, exactly. It was more like a refusal to be ignored. He was tabloid fodder simply because he was a massive train crash – horrific and heartbreaking, and yet impossible to avert your eyes from. She didn’t want to become part of the wreckage again.

She was glad when he left Neptune. They had made it six months after graduation. Six months of laughter and hot, sticky sex, of Logan’s hands and Logan’s low voice in her ear, telling her she was the only thing that mattered to him. They had made it right up until the morning she walked into Logan’s hotel suite and found another girl in his bed, curled around him like she belonged there. Logan had opened bleary eyes and seen her standing frozen in the doorway. For a second he looked like he was going to make the dire mistake of apologizing to her. But he shifted modes in the blink of an eye. He stretched lazily and said, "I’m guessing that face means you don’t want to join us." When she didn’t say anything he shrugged. "Your loss."

She walked out and didn’t come back.

So she was relieved when he left. She never, ever wanted to see him again, except…he was the only person left who understood how much she’d been through. He was the only one who really remembered Lilly, the only one who missed Duncan as much as she did. As much as she hated him, his disappearance left a huge, aching hole in her life that no one had been able to fill since.

And she was horrified to discover that seeing him again was far from the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

He finished wiping his face. "I don’t know why we didn’t do this sooner," he mused. "You’re such a pleasant date."

"I have a pretty good idea."

"Because you’ve been pining away for me and you didn’t trust yourself not to succumb to my charms?"

That hit a little too close to home at the moment. "You think this is funny?" she snapped. "Let’s get this straight: The only reason I’m helping you at all is because Percy doesn’t deserve to grow up under your fucked-up supervision."

Logan shoved his leftover food hard into the nearest trash bin. "Then I guess I can take that $2500 check back."

"Screw you, Logan. You screwed around while we were dating and then disappeared for five years. Did you really think I’d jump at the chance to help you?"

"I screwed around  _once_ ," he said tightly. "And you were about to dump me anyway."

Her scathing remark died on her lips. She stared at him for a moment in quiet shock.

"I didn’t know you knew that," she said finally.

"Come on, Veronica. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been through it before." He was looking down at his hands, twisting a napkin through his narrow fingers over and over again. "And I thought you’d want me gone."

"I did."

"So what’s the problem?" he asked angrily.

"The problem is that you won’t stay gone," she said, voice rising. She could feel something burning behind her eyes, something she told herself was absolutely  _not_  tears, and  _shit_  - she swore she would never, ever do this again.

"How is this my fault?" he exploded. "Trina fucked up, not me. I could have left him at the door of the nearest shelter, but I’m shelling out $5000 to drag her ass back. If you didn’t want to take the case you could have told me to shove it. I’m used to hearing that from you."

He was right, she thought in despair. He was behaving responsibly for once in his life, and maybe that’s what she couldn’t handle. He was also turning her into a raving lunatic. Percy made a tiny noise of distress, and they both looked. His eyes were wet as he watched their argument mounting, and he had a fry crushed in his little fist.

"Shit," Logan muttered. He pried open the kid’s hand and started wiping it with a napkin like a mother hen. Veronica watched him, trying to breathe around the rock lodged in her throat. She couldn’t tell if she wanted to laugh or cry. Either way, Logan wasn’t going to witness it. She grabbed her bag and stood up.

"Leaving so soon?" Logan asked acidly, not looking at her. She started walking toward the nearest exit sign. "I’ll see you tomorrow at 9AM," he called after her. "Don’t even think about going without me." She didn’t answer.

She made the mistake of glancing back at them before she walked out the door. Logan’s head was bent toward his nephew’s, his face taut. Percy still had his fingers wrapped around Logan’s thumb, and she felt an increasingly familiar shock of panic. Logan was nothing more than a bad memory at this point. He was a mistake she’d made not once, but twice, much to her humiliation. He’d been long since relegated to the back of her mind, filed under "Romantic Horror Stories." She didn’t want to see him like this, didn’t want to remember he was anything other than selfish and self-destructive. Shit. This was going to kill her before it was over.

She went where she always went when she needed distraction: Mars Investigations. She had two missing person cases that, until yesterday, seemed monumentally fascinating. Now she found herself staring off into space every few minutes. That was how her father found her when he walked out of his office just after closing time.

He took one look at her face and pulled a chair up next to her. "Why are you doing this to yourself again?"

"Doing what?" she stalled.

Her father’s face took on that expression he’d perfected over the years: skepticism and concern shot through with compassion. "He’s not a teenager any more, Veronica. You can’t save him."

"It has nothing to do with him," she lied. "It’s just a job."

Her father tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, frowning. "Then drop it. We don’t need the business, and I don’t like him around you. I know he’s had a tough life, but he’s trouble."

"I’ll be fine," she said firmly. "There’s nothing going on between Logan and me."

Her father didn’t look reassured. "I know you’ll do the right thing. Just be careful."

"In case you missed the last five years, I also am no longer a teenager, Dad."

"I’m not sure I ever bought you as a teenager," he said ruefully. He left her with a kiss on the forehead.

Careful. No problem. She was an expert at careful.

There were two messages from Jeff waiting for her.  _"I missed you last night, babe. Call me."_  Delete.  _"They told me you called in sick. I’m worried. Call me."_  Delete. She didn’t want to talk to Jeff, but visions of Logan still hovered on the periphery of her brain. She picked up the phone and dialed.

"I was wondering if you’d dropped off the face of the earth. You ok?" Jeff’s familiar voice came over the line, and she felt the tension of the last 24 hours dissolve through her veins.

"I had an emergency at my dad’s office. I- I had to take a last minute trip down to LA for a case." It was almost the truth.

"Hey, I understand. My girlfriend is a hot-shot detective."

"And a badass photographer," she said. "Don’t sell me short."

"It would be hard for you to get much shorter. Just…let me know next time, ok? I worry about you chasing bail jumpers around LA with your taser."

"Sorry," she said softly. "Next time I’ll call."

God, he was so easy. Question, answer, concern, reassurance. Done and done. She’d started to think her inability to ignore Logan was an indication of something twisted inside of her, that it was somehow her fault. But if she could manage to maintain a relationship with someone as normal as Jeff, then she couldn’t be too fucked up, right?

Which meant Logan really was just  _that_  irritating.

"Have you given any more thought to what I asked?" Jeff lowered his voice a notch to his crooner voice. The voice he made love with. The voice he proposed with.

"It’s been hard not to," she said truthfully, turning the ring around on her finger.

"And…did you…"

Her vocal cords stretched to the snapping point.

She was going to marry him; she had devoted two years of her life to him, knowing it would happen. But when he finally asked her, the steady path they’d been on seemed to drop off around her. Now she didn’t know where to take the next step. She slid the engagement ring off her finger and into her bedside drawer, struggling with the words.

"Never mind," he said quickly. "I promised, I know."

It took him five more minutes of badgering to convince her to let him spend the night at her place. The thought of sex with Jeff left her vaguely cold at the moment, but she wasn’t about to spend another night dreaming of a certain spoiled ex-boyfriend with intense eyes. She didn’t want to wake up with Logan all around her, remembering how they slammed together like magnets every time he kissed her. She just had to get by until she found Trina. Then everything would fall into place again.


	5. Chapter Five

Logan was a little fuzzy on whether he had actually intended for Veronica to find him in bed with another girl five years ago. He remembered that she’d been distant for weeks. Her reasons included, but were not limited to: he drank too much, he had no ambition, he was too possessive, he had a death wish, etc., etc. After the first few weeks of college she stopped trying to convince him to apply to school. During the second month she stopped coming directly to his hotel suite after class. By the third month he was lucky if he got a few phone calls a week. He tried so hard to hold on to her, but she was sand in his fist. It seemed he never learned.

They’d had a particularly nasty fight revolving around him taking a swing at some asshole that was hitting on her. He wasn’t pissed at the asshole; he was pissed because Veronica was smiling at the asshole, wide and pert, like she hadn’t smiled at him for a month. That weekend Veronica had implored him to come out to dinner with her; they needed to talk. He was pretty sure he’d overturn every table in the restaurant if he had to listen to her cut him out of her life one more time. Instead of keeping their dinner date, he spent the night at the hotel bar, looking for someone he wanted to sleep with that didn’t remind him of Veronica. It took some effort, but he found her. Tall, curvy, dark-haired – Jessica Rabbit in the flesh. Just the thing to prove to himself that he could survive the next thirty or forty years without Veronica Mars.

He’d been stumbling drunk, so he could never quite remember if he meant to be caught. Logan thought he was just enough of a prick that he probably did. Take that, you heartless bitch. When he saw Veronica’s white face in the morning, he knew. There was no apologizing his way out of it with heartfelt confessions and tears, no making amends with flowers and candy and promises. He had two options. He could stay in Neptune and become that guy again – that guy Lilly turned him into, slobbering drunk on her doorstep, crying and begging to be taken back. Lilly always took him back because, deep down, he knew she enjoyed the power she had over him. Veronica didn’t play those kinds of games, even when he wanted her to.

Or he could leave. He could go someplace where no one had ever met Lilly Kane and no one had ever heard of Veronica Mars. He’d been a fucking idiot, of course, thinking he would ever actually get away from Neptune, but he hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly at the time. He’d just lost the last thing he gave a shit about, and Dick had urged him to come to LA. _Why the fuck not?_  he thought. He stayed for a week, and realized he didn’t ever have to go back.

If only Trina could have kept her pants on.

*****

The first thing he saw when he entered the parking lot the next morning was Keith Mars, leaning up against Logan’s brand new SUV, wearing a terrifying smile. Logan faltered for a second, but Percy was half asleep in his arms, and what was he going to do, run?

"I thought we should have a chat," Keith said, running his fingers over the hood of his car with a precision that had Logan thinking of snapping bones.

"Yippee," Logan muttered. He unlocked the doors and slumped Percy in the driver’s seat, then got the brand new car seat he’d purchased yesterday out of the trunk, feeling Keith’s eyes follow him.

He ripped open the top of the cardboard packaging. "As much as I’d love to rehash old times, I’d prefer we not to this next to my new car. Blood on the upholstery and all that."

Keith’s grin merely widened, and Logan felt a little frisson of alarm. Shit. He was  _not_ Veronica’s boyfriend anymore. He was the fastest, snarkiest, coldest bad boy in LA County, and he would not let Keith Mars reduce him to a sniveling teenager. He set the hard plastic carrier in the back and started jerking the straps around the leather seat to hold it in place.

"Now, what makes you think I’m here for violence?" Keith asked in false bafflement. "Veronica’s an adult; you’re an adult. It would be awfully presumptuous of me to come out here and threaten you. Not to mention illegal."

"So you came out here to smile creepily and  _not_  warn me away from Veronica?" Logan asked absently, trying to figure how to tighten the fastenings. The straps that connected diagonally made the whole seat tilt sideways, but the straps that connected horizontally left it hanging so loose that it would be bouncing around every time he hit a speed bump. Jesus, who knew you had to have an engineering degree to install one of these motherfuckers?

"The thing is, Logan – " Keith stopped, distracted by Logan’s struggles. He walked around the front of the car, opened the back door on the passenger side, and reached in to grab the seat.

He continued, "The thing is, Veronica’s worked very hard to get to this point in her life. She’s had a lot to overcome, and I’m proud of her." He calmly flipped the car seat upside down and began efficiently tightening the straps in back. Logan watched dumbly.

"I can’t help but feel this bizarre sense of déjà vu. See, I already know how this story ends, and it’s not good for my daughter. I don’t remember it being particularly pleasant for you, either, so I’m a little confused as to why you’d want to live it again." His eyes were on the seat as he jiggled it to make sure it was properly secured.

Finally Logan said, "This isn’t about Veronica. My sister’s missing. It’s just a business transaction."

Keith gave the seat one last satisfied pat, then climbed out of the back. "That’s what Veronica said. I’m wondering if all the private investigators in LA were on sabbatical this week."

"I…Neptune is Trina’s home."

"I’ll tell you what." Keith dug into his pocket and pulled out a business card. "Here is the number for a Mr. Vincent Vanlowe. His office is two blocks down from ours on Main Street. He’s a perfectly competent investigator, and I’m sure he’ll have lots of luck with your sister."

"I don’t want – "

"I’ll even pay the fee for you," Keith interrupted. "And I’ll break the news to Veronica."

Logan stared down at the card, trapped. He didn’t want someone else to find Trina. He wanted to drive down to LA with Veronica, watching the sun on her hair and her skin, and trying to make her smile.

Keith was studying him closely. "Just business, huh?" he asked softly, and his eyes were pitying despite the threat contained therein.

Instead of answering, Logan grabbed Percy, leaned into the back, and set him in the newly installed car seat. He jumped when Keith clamped a hand on the back of his neck. "I know you’ve had some rough breaks," he said, and his voice was very close to Logan’s ear. "I know your father beat you your whole life, and I’m sorry." The hand tightened. "But if you hurt my daughter again," pause "I will make you  _long_  for your father, I promise." Then he was gone.

Logan slumped against the side of the car, pressing his forehead against the window. He felt the responsibility of his sister’s son pressing in on one side, Keith’s threats on the other. And Veronica in the middle, the only person who could pull him out of this hole. He didn’t get the feeling she’d be reaching her hand in any time soon.

*****

Five more minutes and they would have missed each other. But apparently she’d managed to piss off the gods of coincidence in the recent past, because it was Logan at her door at 8AM sharp.

"I said 9 at the office. What are you doing here?"

He was leaning against the wall, just leaning in that posture of practiced insolence that she always associated with him. There was nothing solid about Logan. He was all slippery twists and changing angles, and he could never just straightforwardly present himself like every other human being on the planet. He was either rattling her teeth to get her attention or doing what he was doing now, just draping himself away from her. Very smart and smug and  _come and get me_.

"Well," he said, brushing some lint off his shirt, "you and I both know by 9AM you would’ve been halfway to LA and there would’ve been a piece of paper taped to the office door that said  _Better luck next time_  or  _Sorry I had to fly_  or something else you thought was clever."

There was a note she’d written that morning wedged in the back pocket of her jeans that said " _Logan: Would’ve taken you, but awkward car rides aren’t my thing. Call you when I know something. V."_  It took all her effort not to reach back and make sure it was still there, that he hadn’t lifted it off her person somehow in the last twenty seconds.

Logan smirked at the expression on her face. He peered over her shoulder into her apartment. "It’s kind of rude not to invite me in, Mars. Didn’t the sheriff teach his baby girl manners?"

Jeff chose that moment to wander through the kitchen, already dressed in his suit and tie for work. Logan’s expression sharpened. The smile that appeared on his face had predatory edge to it, and he was off the wall in a second, shouldering his way into her front hall.

"So this is where you ended up, huh?" He glanced all around in a parody of genuine interest, when he was really being a genuine asshole.

Jeff ambled over to them, fiddling with his tie. "Morning."

Logan pointed at Jeff in a display of delight and recognition. " _You_  must be the boyfriend." He held out a hand. "Nice to meet you."

Jeff looked a little puzzled, but he shook Logan’s hand. "Jeffrey Polkowski. Uh, nice to meet you. You are?"

That spurred Veronica into action. "This is…this is Logan. He’s a client," she said, shooting daggers at Logan in an attempt to keep him quiet.

Logan gave her shoulder a caressing squeeze. "I guess client works as well as any other label."

Jeff stopped tying his tie. He shot her a quizzical look. "You two know each other?"

"Neptune High, Class of ‘06," Logan filled in, oh so helpful. It wasn’t the most damaging thing he could have said. Then again, Jeff wasn’t stupid. He didn’t know the complete history between her and Aaron Echolls’ son, but he knew enough to piece together about a thousand sordid scenarios in his mind.

"Huh," Jeff said, suddenly at full attention. "Then you live in the area."

"Veronica," Logan turned to stare at her in dismay. "I’m a little hurt that our reunion didn’t even make dinner table conversation." He turned back to Jeff. "Temporarily in the area. Veronica’s helping me out with a little…problem."

Veronica wanted to close her eyes and sink into the fake wood floor of her foyer. Jeff was looking at her like he didn’t recognize her, and Logan was smirking, circling them both as he pretended to examine various facets of the wall, the door, the counter.

She turned to Jeff, ignoring Logan. "He needed to drop something off for his case. He was just about to leave."

"Sure," Logan said airily. "I’ll wait in the car."

Jeff resumed his attention to his neckwear, tugging a little harder on the silk. "You two spending the day together?"

"No," she said, at the same time Logan said "Yes."

"Interesting," said Jeff. He grabbed his work bag from the counter. He usually left her with a kiss on the cheek. Today he put a hand on her waist and kissed her on the mouth, long and lingering and possessive enough to make her back stiffen. She didn’t look at Logan’s reaction, because she  _didn’t care_. Jeff broke away and gave her a look that said, "We will be talking about this."

Out loud he said, "Call you tonight." He shot a tight, "Good luck with that problem," at Logan. Logan responded with a pert little wave.

Veronica watched him go, then glanced up at Logan. He was staring at her left hand. "No ring today," he said, face smooth and unreadable. He pushed past her and headed for the parking lot.

Veronica stopped short when she saw Percy, strapped into a car seat in the back of Logan’s SUV. "You said you were getting a babysitter," she said dangerously.

Logan shrugged. "I lied." He rolled his eyes at her. "Chill the fuck out, supermom. He’ll be fine."

She climbed in the passenger seat and slammed the door. "If you insist on going it would be smarter to take my car. This thing will get stolen in a second."

"Too bad I don’t ride in cars uglier than a monkey’s butt," he said matter-of-factly, starting the ignition.

They managed five blissful minutes of silence before Logan spoke again. "Soooo…do you think Duncan would be jealous or flattered that you’re engaged to his clone? Just a thought."

She turned on the radio. She was in for the longest road trip of her life.

*****

"Classy," Logan said when they pulled up to the run-down apartment building. It was old LA glamour gone to pot – brick exterior, front awning, and wide, spacious windows, all chipping and covered over with about ten years’ worth of dust. It looked like it may have been a hotel at some point, probably in the 1950’s when it was built. Now it held apartments for newcomers to LA, struggling to get their foot in the door of some facet of the entertainment industry or another.

"Stay in the car," she told Logan.

"You know, the word ‘please’ works wonders."

" _Please_  stay in the car, jackass."

"Yeah…not even if you paid me. Although I might reconsider for sexual favors."

They ended up in front of Mr. Jonathan Sewell’s door together with Logan balancing Percy on his shoulders and Veronica clutching her taser at the ready. She needn’t have bothered. The man that opened the door was middle-aged, thin, balding, and nervous. He froze when he saw Percy.

"Hi!" Percy chirped, looking at Sewell.

"I think you may have misplaced this," Veronica said, smiling sweetly.

"Where’s Trina?" Sewell asked, glancing around uneasily.

Hmm, not a promising start.

Logan toed the door open and Sewell let them in without protest.

"Look, the kid isn’t mine," he said desperately.

"Funny, he has your last name."

"That’s because Trina Echolls is a lying little junkie of a whore." She glanced at Logan, but Logan’s face was remote as he set Percy down on a table littered with empty beer bottles.

"Tell us about it," she commanded.

Sewell’s eyes narrowed. "Are you two from child protective services, or something? Because I’m not taking him back."

Logan grabbed him by the collar. "I’m the guy who’s going to beat the shit out of you if you don’t tell me what happened to my sister."

"I don’t know," Sewell shouted, batting at Logan’s hands. "She didn’t exactly leave a forwarding address. I came home one day last year, and she and the kid were gone, along with all my cash and all my coke."

Veronica put a hand on Logan’s arm, surprised at the tension she felt running through him. "Logan, let him talk for a second."

Logan released him, and Sewell rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, taking a step back. His apartment was shabby but relatively clean, although it stank of tobacco. Percy seemed perfectly comfortable perched on the table. He reached out a hand and tipped a beer bottle, watching with interest as it started rolling. Veronica sincerely hoped empty alcohol containers weren’t his only toys when he lived here.

"We’re just looking for some information," Veronica explained. "Trina’s missing."

"Here’s what I know," Sewell said, eyes darting between them. "She was pregnant when I met her. She told me she was Aaron Echolls’ daughter and that she could help me land a deal for one of my scripts if I let her live with me and played guardian to the kid. She stayed for three months, had the baby, and then was in and out after that. She’d just show up, crash with me for a couple weeks, and then disappear. Sometimes she took the kid when she left. Sometimes she didn’t."

Veronica raised her eyebrows. "Sounds like she had a pretty good thing going. Free rent, free babysitting, no strings attached."

Sewell shrugged. "She promised she’d get me a deal eventually. And she’s a good lay."

Logan went stiff as a board next to her. Veronica would really like to sit him down someday and ask him to describe his code of ethics in more detail. It was a screwed up kind of mentality when he could call his sister every name in the book and still feel justified in trying to punch out anyone else who did the same.

"And you don’t know where she went?" Veronica forged on, diverting the conversation away from dangerous territory.

"No. It’s been a year since I’ve seen her, and I still haven’t sold a script."

"Imagine that," Logan said coldly.

"Yeah, well," Sewell shot another nervous glance at Logan, "that’s all I know. I don’t know where she went, and I’m not taking that kid back. I can barely pay the rent as it is."

"I wouldn’t worry about it, Johnny," Logan said grimly. He picked up Percy again, holding him against his body like the entire room was contaminated. He looked so fiercely protective that Veronica felt that shock again, that cold wash of realization that Logan was actually taking responsibility for something. For someone. He started heading for the door.

"Any idea who she might have turned to?" Veronica asked, trying to tear her eyes away from Percy’s arms locked around Logan’s neck.

Sewell smirked. "I’m sure she found another sucker to freeload off of."

"Do you remember her bringing home anyone in particular? Friends, business associates, any names you could give us?"

"No. She went out mostly – she never brought her friends here. But there was one guy who came looking for her a few months after she left. Some guy named Adams."

Logan stopped dead in the doorway and turned slowly. "Adams," he said, and there was something churning in his eyes. Something like dread. "What did he look like?"

Sewell raised an eyebrow at Logan’s sudden intensity. "Big guy. Pretty damn scary. Got all up in my face. I guess Trina owed him money for something." He snorted. "What else is new? I told him exactly what I told you. I don’t know where she went, and I don’t care. That girl’s nothing but trouble."

Veronica handed Sewell a card. "Call me if you think of anything else."

He didn’t even glance at it. His tired eyes followed Logan’s form as he disappeared through the door. "So…that’s the son, huh? Do you think…if I gave you one of my scripts…?"

Veronica didn’t even bother to answer.

Logan was waiting behind the steering wheel, Percy tucked securely in the back "Adams?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow. "I take it that name means something."

Logan exhaled slowly. "Something."

"Well, who is he?"

"He’s just…someone Trina and I knew."

"Thanks. Much clearer now." He was silent. "Hey, last time I checked, you were the one who hired me. If you want to make this harder by being cryptic…"

"Ezekiel Adams. He’s a dealer," Logan said. "A sort of...scary one."

Her heart sank. "A dealer of cars?" she asked hopefully. "A frighteningly tacky used car salesman?"

"No."

Well, damn.

"Trina and I have both used him in the past, but…" he hesitated, then closed his mouth.

The apprehensive look in his eyes was cutting a path right to her gut. "What are you not telling me?"

"I – nothing." He started the ignition. "I know where we can find him. It’s not too far from here."

He wouldn’t meet her stare, and her entire body was beginning to tingle with unease. "You wouldn’t spring anything on me, right?" she asked. "Because you know how I feel about surprises."

"I’m well acquainted with your trust issues. Believe me."

"You should be. You helped create them."

"It’s nothing, all right?" he snapped. "Let’s just go and see what he knows about Trina."

He was lying through his teeth, and he looked as guilty as a teenager caught sneaking out. But she knew him well enough to realize nothing would make him confess until he was ready. The more questions she asked, the more lies he would tell, and god, she hated how much that still bothered her. He dragged truths out of her so easily, found her weak spots with frightening, unerring accuracy, and she could never seem to do the same to him.

She sat back in her seat and watched his tense profile.  _Maybe you’re just being paranoid_ , she told herself. Not believing it for one second. But Trina was still missing, and this was the only lead she had. It was like that goddamn blocked number on the caller ID; she couldn’t help but pick up, even when she knew she would be better off just letting it ring. She was too deep into it now, too committed to this case and this child and, god help her, Logan.

But if anything went wrong, she was going to  _kill_  him. 

 


	6. Chapter Six

Logan’s drug dealer turned out to live in the only section of LA that was worse than Sewell’s neighborhood. Cars on cinderblocks, graffiti on the brick and plaster walls, streets littered with trash – the entire area was like a generic inner city backdrop on a movie set. Accordingly, "apartment complex" was probably too nice a term for Adams’ home. The parking lot wasn’t even paved. A beach of grimy dust stretched out from the squat concrete walls, and rows of silent windows faced the lot, all of them covered with blinds, curtains, boards. In the middle of a Wednesday afternoon it was deserted and still, but Veronica made a mental note to get the hell out of dodge before the sun started to go down.

"Stay here," Logan told her. "I mean it this time." His face was deadly serious, and he was moving in sharp jerks, flicking off the ignition, ripping off his seatbelt.

"Ok," she said, and got out of the car.

Logan froze. "I am not screwing around. I don’t want you or Percy anywhere near this guy."

She looked at the taut lines around his mouth, the set, grim expression in his eyes, and her heart started to pound double-time. "What the hell is going on?" she said through clenched teeth.

"We didn’t…part on good terms," he said uncomfortably. "I don’t want you getting in the middle of it, so stay in the goddamn car."

"Logan, you tell me the truth right now," she said, voice shaking, "or I swear to  _God_  – "

"Logan Echolls," a rough voice called, cutting into their argument. She whipped her head around to see an immense, bald-headed, wife-beater-sporting mountain of a man staring at them from the doorway of the building. His Neanderthal eyebrows were drawn together, and he didn’t look happy. Her uneasiness started tumbling toward fear.

"Shit," Logan muttered under his breath.

"Let’s go," she whispered, trying to get back in the car.

Mountain Man reached around to the small of his back and pulled out a gun.

He wasn’t pointing the gun at them. He wasn’t waving his boulder-like hands around, or yelling, or threatening them in anyway. He just let the ugly weapon hang at his side as he surveyed them from across the lot. Somehow, she didn’t feel reassured. She heard Logan take a deep breath next to her. "Zeke. It’s been a while." Zeke. Ezekiel Adams. Fuck.

"You’re not fucking kidding, you piece of shit," Adams said, his tone oddly blank, and Veronica realized she had just stepped into something even worse than she’d imagined.

"I’m here about Trina," Logan said in a low voice. "She’s missing. I just want to see if you’ve heard from her."

"Touching," Adams said without expression, and raised the gun at Logan. She could almost feel the blood drain from her body. "You’re a messed up kid," he continued casually, approaching them slowly, "but I never thought you were stupid enough to come back here. I guess I was wrong."

"Wouldn’t be the first time," Logan murmured, and she really thought she might kill him herself. If he wanted to bait gun-wielding psychopaths on his own time, fine. But not with her standing a foot away. She felt five long fingers wrap around her wrist, and she realized Logan was tugging on her arm, trying to pull her behind him. Of  _course_ , she thought hysterically. Of course he would choose this moment to dig out his white knight act.

She could feel the pulse in Logan’s palm hammering into her skin. "Look," she said, struggling for a soothing tone. It was difficult when every fiber in her body was pulled guitar-string taut. "I don’t know what’s going on, but if he owes you money…"

"Owes me  _money_?" Adams barked at her. "Do you know what he took from me?"

"Besides your girlfriend?" Logan smirked, still yanking on her wrist.

Adams slammed the gun against Logan’s jaw, and Logan went down, cursing and spitting out blood and nearly ripping her arm out of its socket in the process. Veronica bit her lip until she felt it split under the pressure. Her entire body was trembling. Logan clawed his way upright using the car, and she wanted to tell him to stay  _the fuck_  down for once in his life.

"It’s not my fault she wasn’t getting what she needed at home," Logan wheezed out, baring his teeth in an attempt to grin.

"Is it your fault the two of you used twenty-five grand of my personal stash, you little cocksucker?"

Veronica’s air supply cut off abruptly. She knew Logan wasn’t a boy scout, but  _Jesus_.

Logan opened his mouth to say something else stupid, but Adams pistol-whipped him again, and this time he stayed down, thank God. Percy was beginning to whimper in the back seat.

"I can pay you, asshole," Logan grated, lying in the dirt.

"Really? I guess you misplaced my last invoice," Adams said, and kicked him in the ribs. Logan balled up, groaning. Veronica felt panic creeping in, starting to take over, to blind her. She forced herself to take deep breaths and not look at Logan’s contorted face. God, what had he gotten them into? She should never have taken this case, and she should never have let him come with her today, and she should have made him turn the goddamn car around the second he started lying to her.

And the worst part of all, was that she had started to believe everything was going to be ok. She had opened her door that morning, and seen Logan leaning against the wall and smiling with his eyes, and underneath the knee-jerk retort there had been an undeniable flash of  _happiness_. Happiness that he was back in Neptune, that he was somewhere she could look at him, see for herself that he was still alive and functioning. Happiness and the very beginning of hope, because she’d seen him holding Percy’s hand, and she thought he might have really changed this time around.

But he hadn’t changed at all. He’d dragged her, and worse, his  _nephew_ , into this situation because he was too chickenshit to come clean with her. And now she found herself with Logan, a gun, and a crazy person for the third time in her life. And if he fucking died on her she didn’t know what she was going to do.

Adams hauled Logan up and slammed him against the side of the car, and Percy’s unobtrusive sniffles magnified into full-fledged howling. Adams whirled on her, gun and all. "Shut that fucking kid up," he said threateningly.

She hurried over and bundled the screaming Percy out of the car seat, trying desperately to shush him. The volume of his cries dimmed a bit, but he mashed his little face against the side of her neck, still sobbing. God, she wished she had the luxury of doing the same. Adams was looking mad enough to put a bullet through both of them any second.

"What do you want, an IOU?" Logan said, slumping wearily back against the car. "I don’t carry $25,000 around in my wallet."

"Then it’s your lucky day, Echolls. I have," he glanced at his watch, "half an hour before I have to catch my bus. I’ll just take the rest of my payment this way." He capped off the statement by slamming a fist into Logan’s stomach, and Logan doubled over. Logan’s face was a bruised, bloody mess, and she didn’t quite understand how he was still on his feet, but she supposed growing up with Aaron had given him a lot of experience in taking beatings from men twice his size.

"Jesus, am I paid up yet?" Logan breathed painfully, righting himself again with some effort.

Adams tossed a considering look her way. "Maybe after I fuck your girlfriend, too."

That certainly wasn’t what she wanted to hear. It didn’t seem Logan was too pleased either.

"She’s not involved in this," he said in an uneven, dangerous voice, and she saw his hands fist against the metal side of the car. "You do whatever the fuck you want to me, but you keep your fucking hands to yourself."

Adams’ eyebrows drew together. "I’m sorry, are you threatening me?" He put the barrel of the gun right up against Logan’s throat, slid it right against the sweat and dirt on his skin, and the only reason Veronica managed to stay standing was the fact that Percy was still sobbing in her arms.

Logan was scared; there was no doubt in her mind that that was fear hiding behind his dark eyes. But he wasn’t scared enough – he was  _never_  scared enough – and she had the paralyzing notion that he was going to say something else stupid, just goad Adams into pulling the trigger and finally ending his miserable life that way.

And then she would never get over him.

She found her voice, finally. "Wait," she said, distantly shocked by how steady she sounded. "You don’t have to do this. He can pay you right now." Percy’s sticky fingers were digging into her neck, and Logan’s eyes were almost audibly panicked, and Adams looked ready to snap any second.

"Take the car."

He blinked at her. "What?"

"Excuse me?" Logan said.

If she ignored the gun and Logan’s swaying form, it was really just like bargaining with a client, she told herself. Really. "It’s air-conditioned," she continued calmly, watching Adams’ face. "It’s got a CD player, a full tank of gas, and it’s a lot faster than the bus. Take the car as payment."

Adams looked her up and down, then looked at Logan. Then looked at the perfect, shiny SUV that probably cost three times what Logan owed him.

"Fuckin’ A," he said.

"Logan, give him your car keys," she ordered evenly.

"It’s a new car," Logan said, appalled, blood running down the side of his face.

"Give. Him. Your. Keys." she gritted.

Logan’s mouth drew into a thin line of displeasure, but he fumbled around in his pocket and finally drew out the keys. He tossed them at Adams, who caught them expertly. He looked down at them admiringly, then back up at her. "You’re a smart girl," he said, casting an appraising eye over her. "Pretty cute, too. Are you sure you don’t wanna come with?"

She was just about angry enough to take his offer if it meant getting the hell away from Logan, but she said, "No, thanks.

"Then I’m gonna need your cell phones, too," he said regretfully. "Can’t have you calling the cops on me before I can get rid of the tracker."

She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and handed it off, and Logan did the same, still looking vaguely disgruntled. "There goes the car seat," he said under his breath.

Adams slid into the front seat and turned the ignition, smiling when the SUV started beautifully. Logan glowered. "Trina," he said again, as Adams was rolling down the window. "Have you seen her?" God, she’d completely forgotten the reason they were there in the first place. And it probably said something for Logan’s state of mind that he hadn’t.

Adams smiled lazily, newly chipper in the driver’s seat of his latest paycheck. "I haven’t seen her for a few months. Last I heard, she was a regular patron at the Gypsy Room downtown. Good luck with that one." He was practically whistling as he coasted out of the parking lot.

They watched the car disappear down the empty side street in silence. Then she very calmly unhooked Percy’s arms from around her neck, turned to Logan, and nailed him across the jaw as hard as she possibly could with her fist.

"Jesus," he exploded, "does Percy want to get in a fucking swing too?" He touched his already-swelling cheek, scowling furiously.

She hit him again, lifted a fist and slammed it against his chest, and she could feel the tears coming now, feel the rage and the shock sliding into place now that the paralyzing fear was gone. "You fucking asshole," she choked out, slapping at him like a stupid, hysterical girl. He turned her into a stupid, hysterical girl. She couldn’t stop hitting him, and she couldn’t stop crying, and she’d been so scared, so  _fucking_  scared.

She felt his arms come up around her, felt him dragging her against his body, running a hand over her hair. Percy had kicked up his crying again, just sat down wailing in the dirt where she’d left him, his little legs sticking straight out from his short body. Logan was talking, his low, soothing voice washing over her ears, and he might have been trying to comfort her. She didn’t want his comfort. She wanted to not care so damn much that he’d been in danger, to not feel this numbing fear still squeezing her lungs. His arms felt far too safe, considering he was the reason she could barely see through her tears in the first place, and she wanted to tell him to get the fuck away from her before he sent her to pieces all over again.

She opened her mouth to let him know exactly how much she hated him, she  _hated_  him, how much she’d haunt him if he up and died on her, too. All that came out was, "I  _told_  you not to bring Percy." His chest lifted once under her cheek, and she wasn’t sure if he was laughing or crying.


	7. Chapter Seven

Logan watched Veronica out of the hazy corner of his eye, talking in hushed tones into the receiver. They had walked for twenty minutes in perfect silence before they found a gas station with an actual, functioning pay phone. Veronica had gone off to scam the clerk out of a few quarters, and he had taken the opportunity to slide his tired body down against the building. Percy was in his lap, one thumb planted firmly in his mouth, the other hand clutching desperately at his t-shirt. His screams had subsided to watery little hiccups, but he clearly wasn’t planning to let go of Logan any time soon. He kind of liked him there, a warm body against his chest. He would have preferred it if that warm body had blonde hair and satiny skin and a cute, round little butt, but he was pretty much up for any form of comfort he could get at the moment.

The entire left half of his face felt like a helium balloon, hot and swollen and too tender to touch. Veronica had mopped up most of the blood, but his collar was crusted and scratching at his neck, and his ribcage felt like Adams had backed over it once or twice before peeling out of the place in his car. His face would be a mess tomorrow, although he supposed he should be glad Adams hadn’t broken anything vital. Percy’s weight against him intensified the agony, but he let him stay anyway.

Veronica hung up and came back towards them. He could still see the tear tracks on her cheeks, but her face was a mask of composure. Somehow he knew who was on the other end of that phone call without having to ask.

"I don’t think we’re all gonna fit on the back of Weevil’s bike."

"I told him to bring a car." There was an unnatural evenness to her voice that he didn’t like. Her clear gaze went right through him, and when she slid down the wall next to him, she left a good two feet of space between them. She let the silence ride for a minute before speaking.

"Five years," she stated calmly. "It’s been five years since someone pointed a gun at me. You’re back two days and look what happened."

He had nothing to say to that.

"I’m out," she continued in that same, too-steady voice. "I’ll help you find another private investigator, or help you find a place for Percy, but that’s it. I don’t want this case any more."

He studied her hands, resting limply in the dirt, instead of her face. It was easier to keep a handle on his anger when he couldn’t see her eyes. Had he honestly expected anything else?

"I did it," he said, trying for a light tone. "I made Veronica Mars walk away from an unsolved mystery. Do they give ribbons for that?"

She didn’t respond, and he wanted to scream at her and pound the wall, because she  _promised_  she would see this through. He didn’t have a clue where to go from here, didn’t know how to deal with his nephew or his missing, possibly dead, please-god-not-dead sister. He couldn’t think of anything to say to her that wouldn’t sound like begging, so he kept his mouth shut.

He heard Weevil’s car long before it came into view. He was pretty sure the motor on that thing could be heard three counties over. Shit-brown and boxy, it left a two-foot trail of exhaust over the pitted pavement as it approached from a distance. He missed his SUV already. Weevil rumbled to a stop alongside the building, took one look at Logan’s battered face, and grinned like Christmas had come early to California.

"It’s like you never left," he drawled, teeth flashing white against dark skin. He hadn’t changed much in five years, except that he looked satisfyingly small with the bulk of the car surrounding him.

"Well, I thought you might miss me. Nice car, Starsky."

Weevil snorted. "Looks like you’re the one trying to play detective here."  _And fucking it up royally_ , his eyes said.

Weevil got out of the car in all his cheesy, leather-jacketed glory, and Veronica met him halfway. "Does that make me Hutch?" she asked with a wry smile.

"Yeah. But cuter." He hugged her, and Logan felt his fingers twitch. God, he hated this. He’d always hated it – that easy camaraderie that existed between the two of them, the unspoken understanding. It was like some fucking outlaw code he couldn’t crack.

Weevil looked him over again and shook his head. "You sure know how to piss people off."

"It’s a gift."

He sank down on his haunches right next to him, put his irritating smirk right in front of Logan’s face. "Who’s this?" he asked, hitching his chin at Percy. Percy stared up at him, entranced.

"Careful, amigo. He’s trained to attack bikers. He goes apeshit at the sight of leather."

"Do you belong to this asshole?" Weevil asked Percy. He lifted the kid off Logan’s lap and into his arms like he’d done it a million times before, and Logan clenched his teeth against a sudden surge of possessiveness. Weevil studied Percy’s wide-eyed, tear-stained face while Logan winced his way to his feet, glaring the whole time. He swore he could feel his organs scraping against each other in his chest.

"He belongs to Logan’s sister," Veronica supplied. Weevil was bouncing Percy in his tattooed arms and smiling so goofily that any other day Logan would have been rolling on the ground, cackling. But Veronica’s mouth was tipped up softly at the two of them, and Percy was gazing into Weevil’s brown face like he was the fucking pied piper, and they looked like such a happy little family that he just wanted to break things instead.

"Good thing," Weevil said. "Because the thought of Echolls reproducing is a fucking nightmare." He jiggled Percy a little, and the kid cracked the first smile Logan had seen for hours. Logan hadn’t wanted to punch his stupid Mexican face so badly since Lilly. Almost on cue, Percy grabbed a fistful of black mustache and tugged.

He snickered as Weevil winced. "The verdict’s in. No one like the scruff, Weeves."

Weevil calmly untangled Percy’s fingers. "No one likes your pasty ass either, but that never stops you from coming around."

"Your mother seemed to like my ass just fine the other night, compadre."

His face darkened a fraction. "You wanna walk back to Neptune, asshole?"

"If it means I don’t have to get within fifty feet of that car… Is there like, some law that says you have to steal the ugliest parts you can find?"

"Are you two done flirting?" Veronica cut in. "Or do you need a few minutes alone in the back seat?"

"Hilarious," he grumbled, passing Percy off to Veronica. "You don’t know how much this is gonna cost you, blondie. Get in."

"I knew he missed me," Logan murmured to Veronica, lifting Percy out of her arms. She almost, but not quite, managed to suppress a smile.

Weevil met his eyes in the rearview mirror. "Buckle up, kids."

"You know, I always figured you’d end up somewhere on my domestic staff," he said idly. "Chauffeur makes sense. What with your automotive background and all."

"Jesus Christ," Weevil muttered. "I would’ve put a bullet in you."

Logan was suddenly feeling a lot more cheerful. "Drive on, Jeeves," he said, strapping his nephew in.

*****

Weevil dropped them both off at Veronica’s building, because he refused to spend an additional ten minutes in the car with Logan. It was probably for the best. He’d already received his daily ass-kicking anyway.  
 _  
"The Gypsy Room?"_ Weevil had said, baffled, when Veronica asked him.  _"Why the hell do you want to go there?"_

_"What is it?"_

_"It’s a club, technically. During the day it’s something else."_

_"Something else like…"_

_"Like a glorified crack den."_  
  
  
Fucking terrific.

The ride from Veronica’s building to his bed and breakfast proved much less entertaining than the ride from LA. She was perfectly relaxed when Weevil was there, but her face closed off the second they stepped out of Weevil’s shit-mobile into the parking lot. He tried not to look at her as they flew down the highway in silence, but he couldn’t help stealing glances at her strained profile.

"Are you really walking away from this?" he finally asked her.

"I don’t know what else to do," she answered quietly. "Percy could have gotten hurt, or you could’ve –" she stopped and breathed in. "I can’t go down this road again with you, Logan."

The sun was halfway down, and Percy was asleep in the back seat, and the blue shadows playing off her face only intensified the hush. "You never walked away from Lilly," he said. She went rigid.

"Lilly was  _murdered_ ," she bit out, and he realized there were tears in her eyes. "You don’t walk away from that. My God, how can you even compare the two? She wasn’t walking around, scamming drug dealers and doing everything in her power to get herself killed…"

"That’s debatable," he cut in sharply.

She kept talking like she didn’t even hear him. "She was sixteen and stupid, but no one deserves that. God, she was _murdered_  – "

"And I am  _still here_ ," he said heatedly. " _Help_ me. I don’t know what to do."

She pulled up to his building and hit the brakes. "Shit!" she said abruptly, slamming an open palm against the steering wheel. Then she dropped her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. He waited, knowing he’d already won. The graceful line of her throat shifted once as she swallowed, and for a blinding second all he wanted to do was put his lips there, press kisses all over her neck and her skin and her mouth, because she was beautiful and brave and it made him a little crazy to think of Adams pointing that gun at her.

"You can’t bring Percy again," she said without opening her eyes. "I’m serious this time."

"Ok," he said quickly.

"And I want you gone after this is over."

It shouldn’t still hurt at this point, but it did anyway, a clean slice through his heart. "Fine," he managed.

She sighed. "Meet me tomorrow at the office."

"I don’t have a car."

A ghost of a smile touched her lips. "Take the bus.

Now was the time to get out of the car. He’d gotten what he wanted – she wasn’t going to desert him. Except…

"I didn’t know that was going to happen," he said, watching her blink at the windshield. "If I had known – if I had even suspected – I would never have brought you and Percy along. I wouldn’t have let you anywhere near him. I wouldn’t – I would  _never_  – " he stopped, breathing hard, shaking with the need for her to believe him. Jesus, he was just as wrapped up in her as he’d always been, just as desperate for her to look at him, see how much he would do for her.

He saw her knuckles bleaching white on the steering wheel. Very carefully, without looking at him, she said, "I don’t want to be investigating your murder next."

He caught his breath, struggling under the spreading tide of emotion those words evoked. It pierced right through him, the possibility behind that small sentence. He swallowed. "You won’t. I swear you won’t." She still didn’t look at him. "I’m sorry," he said hoarsely. "And not just about today. What I did, five years ago…" He’d drafted hundreds of versions of this speech in his mind, rants and pleas and promises, but now that it was happening, they were all gone. All he felt was a driving need to make her hear it.

The words started to tumble out of him. "I never wanted things to end like that. I was stupid, and I was angry, and I was scared, and I knew you were going to leave me. And I was so in love with you that I didn’t think. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I just – "

She turned her head then, all blue eyes and porcelain skin and rumpled blonde hair, and the rest of the words jammed in his throat. He couldn’t get it out. He couldn’t get out that he wished he had been brave enough to meet her at that restaurant, that he wished he had just swallowed his goddamn pride and  _asked_  her five years ago, asked her what the hell it would take for her to stay with him. For her to be in love with him the way he was with her.

He took a deep, shaky breath, tried to summon up some control. "I don’t know if it means anything now, but I’m sorry." She just looked back at him, soft and conflicted. Her blue eyes were brimming over with confusion and frustration and compassion and a trace of pity that he hated, but there it was. He was going to kiss her. She was probably going to slap his face again and call him one of her long repertoire of insulting names, but he was going to do it anyway. He was going to lean across the seat and put his mouth on hers for as long as she’d let him, and feel the tiny curve of her waist and the cool silk of her hair against his palms. The surprising strength in her hands and the tart cherry taste he never forgot and the sweet shift of her body against his.

He leaned forward the slightest bit, unable to stop himself, and she jumped back like she’d been burned, knocking her head against the window. "Damn it," she whispered, rubbing where bone and glass made contact.

And apparently heartfelt apologies were for shit.

The raging anticipation in his stomach congealed into a tight, bitter knot. He took a second to put himself back together, to collect the little confetti pieces of regret and want and need off of the car floor and roll them back into himself. When he was sure he could move without smashing something, he climbed out of the car. She was still watching him, but her gaze was wary now.

"I need you to find me a babysitter," he said, not even caring that he sounded sulkier than a toddler.

She made a smothered, defeated noise that might have been a laugh. "Be outside your building at 9 tomorrow morning. I’ll pick you up, and I’ll find a damn babysitter."

She left him and Percy standing on the curb, watching her as she drove away.


	8. Chapter Eight

"You better be kidding," Wallace said flatly. "This better be, like, one of those jokes you make that I don’t get."

Veronica dumped Percy into his arms. "Sure. Just think of it as an interactive comedy routine. Whatever helps."

"You want me to babysit for Logan Echolls’ nephew so you two can play detective all over LA?"

It was clear from the disgust on his face that he thought ‘play detective’ was a euphemism for something decidedly naughtier.

"Wallace," she said with utmost patience, "It’s not like that. This is for a case." She’d been saying it so often that she was starting to sound like a broken record. And every time she said it, it sounded less true.

Apparently Wallace agreed. "Yeah. I’ve heard that one before."

"Aw, don’t be bitter. I haven’t asked you for a favor in, like, months."

"If by months, you mean last week," he said stonily. "My rates start at $250."

What the hell – Logan was footing the bill.

"Perfect," she said brightly. "See you tonight." She pulled the door shut before he could protest again.

Logan was peering up suspiciously at Wallace’s apartment building when she climbed back into her car. "He’s not going to kill the kid just to spite me, is he?"

"Wallace doesn’t believe in violence," she informed him matter-of-factly. "But don’t be surprised if Percy’s new catchphrase is ‘Wallace is the man.’"

"Well," Logan shrugged, "you take what you can get."

*****

Her car broke down three times on the way to LA, much to Logan’s exasperation. "I thought you and Weevil were homeys," he groaned. "Doesn’t that guarantee lifetime tune-ups or something?"

But she caught him staring at her when she was leaning over the engine, and instead of annoyance she felt a spread of warmth from her cheeks right on down the center of her body. His apology was still running through her mind, his words and his eyes and the way that she had come so fucking close to letting him kiss her. To telling him he was forgiven.

Because he was forgiven, despite all her efforts to the contrary. Sometime in the last few days he had smiled cockily at her, or ruffled Percy’s hair, or drawled something teasing in her direction, and the last bit of anger and betrayal had dissolved. She couldn’t watch him grab onto Percy’s hand and not acknowledge that there was something other than selfishness in him. She couldn’t ignore the fact that, at some point, his presence had stopped digging at her like glass and had become something infinitely smoother and more dangerous.

But his face was still puffy and bruised from yesterday, a reminder of everything he’d done, everything he was still capable of doing. How much he still scared her. All she knew for sure, when she was forced to pull over for the third time, was that she had a very bad feeling about today.

The Echolls name was enough to get them past the makeshift bouncer and into the Gypsy Room. It was odd to be walking around in the cavernous interior of a club in the middle of the day. The bar, usually the center of activity, hung empty and deserted. Without the lights, music, and alcohol, the place was like a graveyard.

Segregated clusters dotted the open rooms, outlined in the dim gray light filtering through the shaded windows, and she realized that Weevil was right – they had basically walked into a crack den. There were maybe fifty people lounging on couches and sitting in the middle of the floor, but you’d never know it from the silence. It was ghost world in here, people too far gone in addiction to keep up any semblance of cultural niceties. She could feel Logan’s shock, could see the horror buried in his eyes, and she prayed for his sake that this wasn’t where they found his sister.

"Trina Echolls," he inquired sharply of another "patron" slouched against the wall. The guy jerked his head toward a cluster of couches in the very back corner, his deadened eyes never changing. Logan squared his shoulders and started in that direction before she could open her mouth. She wanted to grab his arm and drag him out of there, because the terrible feeling weighing in her stomach was starting to churn with nauseating intensity.

Logan took three more steps toward the back of the club, then stopped dead. Veronica followed his frozen gaze, and there, not ten feet in front of them, was the missing Trina Echolls.

She was lying on one of the couches, a blissed-out expression in her eyes. She looked terrible. Trina had always been fashionably skinny. Now she was a skeleton. Her cheekbones were protruding in her formerly pretty face, and even in the semi-dark Veronica could see the sharp jut of her clavicle. She was as impeccably dressed as always, but the fabric was hanging off her body. Worse than that, she just looked…haggard. Despite her vapidity, Trina had always had a certain gritty glamour to her. A vibrance as undeniable as it was tawdry. There was nothing of that in the girl before them. She might as well have been an extension of the piece of furniture, for all the spark in her eyes.

But the worst thing of all, was that she wasn’t alone on the couch. There was a guy stretched out on top of her, licking her neck, and getting ready to inject something into her arm for her. Veronica looked at the livid track marks on her pale skin, the casual indifference of the guy’s tongue against her throat, the desperation and hopelessness of the whole picture, and she knew Logan was looking at a reflection of his worst nightmare.

She grabbed his arm, as much to stop her hands from trembling as to get his attention. "Logan, let’s – "

But he was already shaking her off, moving toward the two of them, savagely wrenching the guy off of Trina and jerking her to her feet with a hand on her elbow.

"What the hell," Trina slurred, mouth hanging slack.

He half-pushed, half-dragged her into the nearest bathroom, and Veronica ran after them, her heart in her throat. He all but slung Trina at the wall, and she sagged there, barely able to stand on her own power.

"What the  _fuck_  Trina," Logan said, and she could see his jaw working furiously. "What the hell are you doing here? Is that – are you doing  _heroin_  now?" He lifted her arm by the wrist turned it to the light, flashed the needle marks at her.

"Logan?" she asked, squinting through unfocused eyes.

"Yes, Logan," he spit at her. "Your brother, Logan. Who you so thoughtfully left your child with. What the hell were you thinking?"

The mention of Percy seemed to shake some lucidity into Trina’s eyes. She ripped her arm out of his grasp. "What are you, my social worker now? That’s a laugh."

Logan put a frustrated hand through his hair. "Trina, look at you. You’re a fucking mess."

"Oh, spare me, little brother. Like I’m doing anything you haven’t done a million times."

"Shut up," he said viciously, and Veronica thought he might shake apart in rage and denial. "I’ve  _never_  done…this. And I’ve never abandoned a  _child_."

"Well you win, then," Trina sneered at him. "I’ll alert the paparazzi."

"Don’t worry about it," he shot back. "I’ll let them know. When I check you into rehab. Let’s go."

He grabbed her arm again, but she twisted away. "Leave me the hell alone. I’m not going anywhere." She looked weak enough that Percy could probably carry her out if he tried. Veronica was having trouble dragging air into her lungs. She wanted to run out of this dim club, and drive back to Neptune, and pretend this wasn’t happening, that she’d never laid eyes on Percy, and that this wasn’t Logan’s life. Her feet were glued to the chipped tile.

"You aren’t the slightest bit worried about your son, are you?" he asked incredulously.

"I’ve been taking care of him for three years," Trina whined. "I can’t do it anymore."

"Yeah, and you’ve done such a  _stellar_ job so far. Do you even know who the father is?"

To Veronica’s horror, Trina didn’t answer. "Did you put those bruises on his arms?" Logan hissed, and Veronica felt a cold rod of steel straight through her body. "Did you let your asshole boyfriend touch him?" Trina’s eyes shifted, and Logan put his hands on her shoulders and  _shook_  her.

"Logan." She said his name sharply, without thinking, and he froze. It was an automatic reaction – she didn’t really believe he’d hurt his sister, but she’d seen him in wallowing in the depths of despair too many times to let him do something he’d regret. He inhaled and carefully let Trina go, and she fell back against the wall with a dull thump. She brought one hand up to rub at the opposite shoulder with an oddly lightened expression.

"All that time you spent hating dad," she said with a nasty smile, "and you turned out just like him."

Veronica caught her breath as Logan’s jaw went granite hard. She waited endlessly for the explosion, but he just turned on his heel and shoved his way out the door. Trina sank to the floor almost casually, like she’d been heading in that direction the whole time. The vacant expression was creeping back into her eyes, and Veronica hated her. She hated her for Logan, and for Percy, and for herself too, because Logan wasn’t the only one who knew what it felt like to be abandoned by his mother.

She hated her, but she was Logan’s sister, and she was too far gone to help herself, and Veronica knew Trina’s face would haunt her if she didn’t try and make some sort of effort. She squatted down beside her.

"Trina," she said, trying to soften the edge in her voice. "We can get you help. Come with us and we’ll – "

"I don’t want to be a badge on your girl scout vest, Veronica," Trina said wearily, when Veronica hadn’t even realized Trina had recognized her. "Save it for my brother. He gets off on that."

So much for effort. Veronica turned and walked out the door.

She found Logan around the side of the building, halfway down the alley. He was pacing, his face locked in a pale mask of anger. But his eyes were anguished, and that’s what made her say, "We’ll find help for her, Logan," when she didn’t believe it herself. "There are ways to get through to her," she continued, trying to keep her voice steady, "people we can talk to…"

"Shit!" he burst out, and slammed his hand against the brick wall. He did it again and again, and she saw the scrape of blood on his fingers. He didn’t stop until he was gasping, until he had to lean against the wall, drop his shoulders and his forehead against the dirty brick, sucking in air.

She grabbed his wrist, put her palm against his shredded, shaking one. "It’s going to be ok," she whispered, when she had no idea in the world how this was ever going to be ok again. She learned a long time ago not to make promises she couldn’t deliver, but she couldn’t help it with him.

"God, he screwed us all over," Logan choked out. "All of us."

She put a hand on his cheek, brought his swirling eyes down to hers. "No, he didn’t," she said earnestly.

She heard his breath catch slickly in his throat. He held her gaze for an agonizing moment, and then he broke. His mouth landed on hers, wet and hot and seeking. He opened her mouth with his own, tangling their tongues, grabbing the breath from her body. His hands were everywhere, tearing frantically at the fabric of her shirt, clutching with bruising force at her sides, fisting so tightly in her hair that her neck arched back. This had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with oblivion, but she felt her body come to life under his fingers anyway. He was fumbling desperately at the fly of her jeans, trying to yank the waistband down with ferocious force. Anything to get him inside of her faster. He dragged her legs up around his hips and pushed her flush against the wall, kissing her the whole time, and she felt a sweetly familiar jolt at the hard press of him against her stomach.

She would let him. She would let him fuck her against a brick wall, in a back alley in broad daylight, if she thought it would give him one real moment of peace. It didn’t matter if it had been five years or forty. He had somehow decided she was his own personal savior when they were seventeen years old, and she hadn’t been able to shake free of the bonds yet, no matter what she told herself. God, she didn’t want to be needed this much; she had  _nothing for him_ , but he never stopped trying to take it anyway.

His hot breath sounded like a sob against her neck, and it shook her out of the fuzzy area between grief and arousal that she was floating in. Whatever he wanted from her, he wasn’t going to get it from a pity fuck in a public alley.

"Logan, stop," she gasped. She tightened her fingers in his hair, pulled his flushed face up to meet her eyes. "Stop."

He froze for a second. Then he started shaking against her, trembling so violently that her head bounced lightly against the wall. She felt him sinking down, bearing them both to the pavement, felt her knees giving way under his weight. She put her hands on his face, on his neck, anywhere she could feel his skin, make sure he was still in one piece, at least physically. His tears were coming against her neck now, sliding down her shirt, easing the friction between his cheek and her throat.

The sharp brick edges were scraping her back where her shirt had ridden up, and she could barely breathe with him crushing her against the wall, but she didn’t let go of him. She wished she had never seen him holding his stupid nephew, and she wished she hadn’t pushed strollers through the mall with him, and she wished to  _god_  he hadn’t apologized to her with five years of stark regret in his eyes. She wished she had it in her to stop caring, because his body against hers was making her remember why he was so goddamn dangerous. He shook against her, crying into the curve of her neck, and she mostly wished there was more of her to wrap him up in.

They probably stayed like that for minutes. It felt like hours. He eased back from her and sat down on the ground, sloppily wiping tears from his face. She fought to keep her back against the wall, to not make a move toward him.

"I’m sorry," he said dully. She wanted to say a million things to comfort him, but she couldn’t manage a single one. His tears were too fresh on her skin, his face was too raw, and anything she said would just rub the wound open again. He stood up, not even extending a hand to where he’d pressed her to the ground.

"I have to get back. Make sure the kid’s still alive." That was it. Nothing to let her know whether he was going to break down again, or pull himself together like he’d had to do so many times before, or self-destruct entirely. And she was suddenly terrified.

But she didn’t know how to tell him that, and maybe that had always been the problem.

She pulled her throbbing body up from the ground, dusted the grit from her jeans, smoothed down her hair. "Yeah," she said. "Let’s get back." And she prayed her fucking car would last the ride home.


	9. Chapter Nine

Logan heard the knock on his door through his growing haze of drunkenness. There were lots of varieties of drunk, he’d learned. For instance, champagne and cocktails inevitably led to drugs, which inevitably led to partying, which inevitably led to sex in a hot tub. Beer – Dick’s beverage of choice – was for playing pool and starting fights in bars and waking up on hard, cold, jail-cell floors. Wine was for trying to charm girls into bed, and hard liquor – whiskey in particular – was for escape. And tonight, he definitely needed escape.

He was two-thirds of a bottle in; the room had begun to blur nicely, and the picture of Trina’s wasted face had begun to blur with it. Percy was long since asleep, and Logan wanted to keep drinking until he was confident he could go to sleep, too, without the nightmares. The knock came again, and Logan didn’t bother to answer. There was only one person who knew where he was staying, and she would come in whether or not he invited her.

He tried to think of what she looked like tonight, tried to find an adjective, but they were all gone. She was just: Veronica, and the last person he wanted to see right now, and the only person he ever wanted to see again. He could still feel the imprint of her body against him, still taste her tongue in his mouth, and he wasn’t sure if he was trying to forget her or his sister more.

"Logan," she said, and she sounded fuzzy, and he thought maybe her voice was as good as alcohol. That he could fall into dreamless sleep to the sound of her saying his name over and over again.

"I wanted to check on you. You seemed pretty upset this after- Are you drunk?"

"I’m fine, Veronica. So sweet of you to ask. No, I don’t care that my sister left me with her precious baby boy. That she’s a junkie and a whore and a  _fucking_  made-for-tv movie cliché." His words sounded steady, and he was proud. Well, maybe not quite steady, but a lot better than they felt in his throat.

"You can’t get drunk with a little kid here," she said, aghast. "What if he needs you for something?"

"Then he can take care of himself," he said. Except he didn’t mean it, and he didn’t want anything to happen to his tiny little helpless nephew, and  _fuck_  his sister for following in his mother’s footsteps. And fuck himself, too.  _And I’m so sorry, kid_ , he thought in despair.

He took another very long swallow from the bottle, and the room swung around him like the barrel of a revolver. Veronica’s form blurred past him, once, twice, three times, and she was just blonde hair and pale skin. Then everything settled again, and she was blonde hair and pale skin and pink lips screwed into a furious scowl.

"I’m taking him," she said in a self-righteous little huff. "I can’t leave him here with you."

"Good call, supermom," he replied. And he was pleased that his voice sounded scornful, even through the whiskey-brown haze of his thoughts. It just went to show that anything could become automatic with enough practice. He watched Veronica stalk into his room, wondering what she’d do if he followed her in there, pinned her to the bed, and just breathed her in for an hour or two.

He stood up, and the room tilted crazily again, and he felt his stomach rise in protest. Veronica came out of the bedroom, looking like she was about to buckle under the dead weight of a sleeping Percy. Jesus, the kid was practically as big as her. He should be carting his nephew around instead of being too fucking drunk and useless to even apologize for being drunk and useless. And he was definitely going to throw up.

"I’ll call you tomorrow," Veronica said tightly. "When you’re sober. Jesus, Logan."

He pushed past her into the bathroom.

He was too busy retching into the toilet to hear if she said anything else. Why the hell did he always turn to her to make things better, when it always ended up so much worse? She smashed everything around him to bits; and he wouldn’t even care about that if she just fucking  _stayed_  with him afterwards. But she ran, and she washed her hands of him, and she left him there in the wreckage every time.

He didn’t hear her come into the bathroom until her pink-painted toes appeared in his line of vision. "Are you ok?" she asked warily. He wanted to scream at her that of course he wasn’t fucking ok, but he was too nauseous to make his throat obey. He felt her hand like a whisper on the back of his neck as he threw up again, and he felt the cool brush of her as she sank down on floor beside him.

He sat back from the toilet, exhausted and dizzy. Her eyes were dark in her pale face, and they reflected so much of his own pain that it tore ragged in his chest. "I’m sorry," she whispered, reaching out to brush his hair. It was the lightest touch in the world, but it was enough to break what was left of his resolve. He hauled her against him, dragged her down to his level on the floor and locked his arms around her, burying his face against her neck. She stayed rigid in his grasp, but she didn’t push him away.

"I love you," he mumbled, because he’d already puked up the last of his pride into the toilet. He felt her entire body jump, but he couldn’t let her go when she was the only thing between him and insanity. He clutched at her so tightly he was probably leaving bruises, but she didn’t make a peep. Maybe if he squeezed her tightly enough, marked her thoroughly enough, she wouldn’t leave this time, and he would never, ever be here alone on the floor again.

"I always loved you," he said against her skin. "Even when I left."

"Shh," she whispered then, stroking fingers through his hair, twisting to fit herself against him more fully. "It’s ok." He could hear the tears in her voice, and it felt so fucking good to have someone else crying for him, for once. She smelled like soap and lavender and Veronica, and she felt like everything he’d been missing for five years. She was shaking; she didn’t realize how many times he’d done this on his own, without her there. He didn’t know if he was ever going to be able to do it on his own again, and that was the most dangerous thing about Veronica Mars.

But for now she was here, and he couldn’t bring himself to think about the future when her fingers were in his hair and her body was pressed flush against him. He held her tightly, matched his shuddering breaths to her soft, steady ones, and let himself get lost in her, one more time.

*****

When Logan opened his eyes, the first thing that hit him – besides the tiny hammer pounding away at the inside of his skull – was that he was actually comfortable for the first time in three days. He turned his head to the side, and he realized he was finally sleeping in the king-sized bed he was shelling out a fortune for. And he wasn’t alone. Percy was snuggled up next to him, a thumb stuck contentedly in his mouth, and over his head he could see scattered blonde hair and sandy eyelashes against smooth cheeks.

The morning after was never pleasant, but today it was a little better than usual. He vaguely remembered Veronica propping him up at the sink and forcing him to brush his teeth, wash his face. She poured about four gallons of water down his throat until he threw up again, and then he fell asleep with her hand lying in his. And she was still here.

He picked Percy up as gently as possible and set the kid on his chest. Then he scooted closer to Veronica and pulled her against his side. She curled toward him like it was the most natural thing in the world, and her hand crept lightly under his shirt and settled on his stomach. He would give up his entire inheritance for Percy to not be in his bed so he could put a hand on her stomach, too. Instead he watched her breathe and tried to remind himself to do the same.

He could do this, he thought, if Veronica was there. He could take care of this kid and stop being such a fuckwad and behave for the rest of his life if this was the end result. Trina was gone, unsalvageable; he didn’t want to be unsalvageable. Maybe it was possible for him to end up somewhere like this after all, for him to end up happy. The last time he felt this hopeful was the first time he kissed Veronica outside his car, when he was seventeen and he didn’t know his father was a murderer, and all he cared about was that a smart, fierce, gorgeous girl wanted to be with him.

Veronica stirred against him and grunted a little in her sleep, and a second later she opened her eyes and looked at him. He wasn’t sure whether to expect disapproval or pity or some combination of the two. She just blinked sleepily and said, "Hi."

"You stayed," he said, and she gave a small smile.

"You were in pretty rough shape."

"I’ve been in worse," he admitted, and she reached out and slowly, slowly touched his face. He tried not to breathe as she traced the bruises there, tried to hold himself statue-still. The drift of her skin across his was –  _god_. It felt like a drug to have her touching him – it felt like  _forgiveness_ , when he didn’t even know he’d been craving it so badly. She trailed her hand down and locked her fingers through his, and he couldn’t do anything except squeeze tight.

She nodded her chin at Percy. "He woke up in the middle of the night. I tried to put him on the couch, but he wanted to sleep with Uncle Logan," she said. The band around his chest tightened another notch.

She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes, one hand still clasped in his. "What are you going to do about him?" she asked, husky-voiced and serious.

He touched the kid’s hair with his free hand, because somehow in the last few days he’d started to care. "What are my options?"

"You could turn him over to the state. He would be put in foster care."

Logan remembered the bruises on Percy’s arm again, remembered the stories of what happened to kids in foster care. "No," he said flatly.

Veronica hesitated. "Or you could legally take custody of him yourself."

This was what taking a leap off the Coronado Bridge must be like, Logan thought. He was free falling, no bottom in sight. How the hell was he supposed to take care of a child?

"What would I have to do?" he asked roughly.

"Well, you would need proof of financial stability…I think you’re all set there. They’d have to do a cursory search for his guardians. Trina will be found unfit, and I doubt Sewell will fight you on this. Other than that…you just need a few solid character witnesses to testify to your qualifications."

"Sure," he said. "I’ll just draw from my admiring public."

"I’d testify for you," she said quietly, and something burst inside of him, something so incredibly beautiful and fragile that he was afraid to breathe.

"What if – what if I end up like him?" he asked, feeling Percy’s weight on his chest like an iron load. "What if I can’t help it?"

"I  _know_  you won’t," Veronica said fiercely. "But this is how you can prove it to yourself. You’re not your father, Logan."

God, he wanted to cry again, she was looking at him with such conviction. He wanted to make a million promises that he certainly wouldn’t keep, but that’s what she did to him.

"You’re good with him," she continued, squeezing his hand. "And I think he’s good for you."

"Even after last night?" he asked ruefully.

"Yes," she said evenly, and he gathered up everything left of his heart and his soul and his courage. Jumping off the bridge.

"You could be there to watch me," he said, voice unsteady with hope. "Make sure I don’t screw it up."

He held his breath, trying to catch some signal from her eyes. The emotions were playing across her face so quickly he couldn’t pluck a single one out. The moment hung endlessly. Then she pulled her hand out of his. "I don’t think that’s a good idea."

He hit the water at breakneck speed. "Of course not," he said bitterly. "You’ve still got a life." A job and a future and a _fucking_  fiancée.

She drew back a little, climbed off the bed. "It’s not that. It’s just – you and I – we don’t…" she made a helpless motion with her hands.

He was sinking under now, because he had finally remembered what it was like to breathe easy, to be able to inhale without choking, and she wasn’t going to let him keep it. She already had her life mapped out, and he had been excluded from the blueprint a long time ago.

He couldn’t look at her as she picked up her purse and headed for the door to the bedroom. "I’ll bring the second check by the office tomorrow," he said, staring at the pillow next to him.

He heard her stop, shifting her feet like she might protest. But then she walked out, and a few seconds later he heard the outer door open and close behind her. He took a few breaths to calm the churning anger in him. Of all the ways he thought this would’ve ended, he never imagined Veronica would be walking out on him again, and he’d be leaving Neptune with his sister’s kid still in tow. That he would  _want_  his sister’s son with him. At least the kid needed him.

He might be able to do this, he thought again. He felt just…empty, but Percy was something. Maybe he could bring him up the way a kid should be brought up – not worrying about finding their mother passed out on the couch or their father waiting in their room with a belt. Not learning how to invite tragedy in so it didn’t just keep walking up and punching them in the face. He wasn’t sure the plan worked without Veronica: he seemed to fall to pieces when she wasn’t there, and maybe he would screw it up entirely. For once in his life, though, he really, really wanted to try.

"Ok," he said to Percy’s sleeping face. "Let’s figure this out."

*****

Veronica went home to her apartment, and she thought about Logan. There were messages again, agitated messages from Jeff. This time she deleted them, and didn’t call back, and thought about Logan.  
 _  
I love you,_  he had said last night.  _I always loved you._  He had said it to her before and not remembered in the morning, and she had walked away from it before, convinced herself that he’d be fine. Logan leeched on to the closest warm body. He’d find another girl to love. But what if the next one couldn’t pick up the pieces of him?

She meant what she told him about Percy. She saw the way he looked at his nephew, and the way Percy looked back at him, with complete trust. Maybe they could heal each other. Maybe she wanted to be there and see it happen. She went to the newspaper office, and didn’t visit Jeff at lunch, and came back to her apartment that night, and thought about Logan.

She couldn’t sleep, because she knew Logan was in a bed and breakfast across town. She knew she could go there, and he’d press her against the wall and kiss her brain away, and she wouldn’t have to make any sort of decision at all.

She finally rolled out of bed at 5AM and headed to her father’s office to distract herself. Except her car wasn’t in the parking lot. There was a red Porsche sitting in her space, sporty and stylish and perfect for California highways. It was brand new and probably cost a hundred times the remaining fee that Logan owed her. The keys were sitting on the front seat, and there was a note on the dashboard that just said, "I’m gone. Logan." 

 


	10. Chapter Ten

Percy jumped up and down in front of the door until Logan turned the key and opened it. He charged in ahead, yelling for some reason Logan couldn’t even fathom. In the few weeks since he’d left Neptune the kid had stopped grabbing for Logan’s hand so often, and he wanted to be carried even less. He was a freaking bundle of energy, full steam ahead, all the time. Logan couldn’t decide if he liked it better when he was scared and traumatized. At least he was silent then. But the smiles were kind of nice, too.

Suddenly Percy stopped yelling and came running back out of the apartment, slamming into Logan’s legs. “Uncle Logan,” he whimpered, and held out his arms to be picked up. Logan obliged.

“What’s wrong, Master P?” he asked, carrying him through the living room. “Did you see a – ” he stopped. Veronica was in his kitchen, casually putting away groceries.

“I think I startled him,” she said, smiling briefly. She was wearing a dress – a flowery, cottony wisp of a dress that lit up her pale skin like sun on snow. Her hair was especially shiny, like maybe she used a blow dryer and put a lot of girly products in it. Like maybe she did it for him. He slammed the brakes on that line of thinking before it got out of control. This was Veronica, and there were a million reasons she could be in his kitchen, most of which had nothing to do with him. She reached to put something away in a top cabinet, her flimsy skirt riding up almost…almost…. Logan felt himself start to sweat.

He pushed himself into motion with a little effort and set Percy down on the floor again. “Don’t you remember Veronica?” he asked his nephew. “She’s only a little scary. She likes to show up every once in a while in completely locked apartment buildings.”

“Hi,” Percy said shyly, and Veronica smiled back. “Hey there.”

“I was thinking of making lunch,” she said, “but I figured you’d be out of…well, pretty much everything.”

“We have Fruit Loops,” Logan said defensively.

“Right,” she said, and he saw a flash of uncertainty on her face. “Anyway, I convinced your doorman that I was your personal shopper, and that the milk was going to spoil.”

“And to think I moved into this building because of the security,” he said, watching her. He nudged Percy toward his bedroom. “Give me and Veronica a second, k?”

Percy made it as far as the end of the counter. Then he looked at Veronica and said, “Play with me?” Veronica opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

“Percy,” Logan said warningly, like he was Ward-fucking-Cleaver, and Percy waved at Veronica and toddled into his room.

“I’m impressed,” she said wryly.

“Yeah, well, it turns out Percy and I have a lot in common. What with the being abandoned and all. I’m raising him as my own personal Mini-Me.”

She looked at the ground. “I miss you.”

His heart slammed into his ribs and stuck there. She looked skittish, and he didn’t want to scare her away, but what the fuck? What the hell was he supposed to say when his mind was already four steps ahead, lifting her onto the counter and pushing that virginal little dress up around her waist?

“I missed you these last couple weeks,” she said, and she was still gazing at the smooth tiles. “And it got me thinking that maybe I missed you for the last five years and I just didn’t know it.” His heart was beating really fast now, and he didn’t have the slightest clue what to say, except: I miss you too, I love you, please don’t do this if you don’t mean it. And he was afraid laying himself bare would send her straight back out the door.

“It seems Jeff agreed with me,” she continued. “He thinks I might have missed you, too, and apparently he didn’t want to marry someone still hung up on their high school boyfriend.”

Logan froze. “So this is what, closure?” he said hoarsely. “Did you come out here to prove something to yourself?” The adrenaline shot of the last five minutes crashed around him, and he felt himself cracking slowly, buckling under the collapse.

“No,” she said, looking him in the eye for the first time. “I told him he was crazy. Then I broke up with him, got in my car, and drove down to LA.”

And just like that, all the cracks in him sealed up and disappeared. It was scary, the power she had over him. He should hate it – he’d spent years trying to hate it – but all he could do was drink in the sight of her standing in his apartment. Staring at him like he might have power over her, too.

He took a step toward her, doubly cautious now. “So what does that mean?”

“I- I don’t know. It means I’m not marrying Jeff. And I missed you. And I’m really hoping you’re not seeing someone else.”

“No. No one,” he said quickly, taking another step toward her. God, he could smell her now, sweet and soft and shining. Her eyes looked terrified, but he thought that maybe he was close enough to grab her this time if she ran.

“Well, ok,” she said. “Good. I’m staying here for a few days, so…good.”

They stared at each other for an endless moment, and he held his breath. He wasn’t going to open his mouth, because it was going to be the wrong thing, whatever he said. He’d known her since he was twelve years old, and the only thing he’d ever really figured out about her was how to piss her off.

She finally looked away, and said, “Ok,” one more time. She turned to go, and he desperately did not want her walking out of his apartment, because no matter what she said, she might jump in her car and drive back up to Neptune, and then this would all be over again.

He put a hand on her shoulder and she stopped. He was not going to say anything, and he wasn’t going to beg or plead or do anything to scare her, and…yes, yes he was.

“Don’t leave,” he said, raw. “We can sit down and talk about this, or not, just, please don’t walk out right now.”

She sighed and turned around. “I don’t know, Logan. I’m not even sure – ”

He put a hand on her cheek and kissed her, and without hesitation she slid her hands around his neck and kissed him back, and Logan almost stumbled at the heady feeling of it.

“Please,” he whispered when she broke away, burying his face in her neck. “Please, don’t leave me again. I know I fucked up. I’m doing better. I’m going to do better. I just- God, just let me try again.”

He felt her shivering against him, felt her hands clutching tight at his sides. “Ok,” she murmured into his chest, and his whole body clenched in response. He really did heft her up and set her on the counter then, but she laughed and nuzzled against his hair, small hands bracketing his face.

“I’m not having sex where your three-year-old can wander in any second. At least take me to the bedroom, Casanova.”

He didn’t have to be asked twice.

*****

“Do you want me to move back to Neptune?” he asked, trailing his mouth down between her breasts. “Because I will.”

She was running her hands over his back in a way that sent prickles all up and down his spine, despite the fact that they’d already had sex twice in the last hour. He never thought he’d be here again, with Veronica wrapped around him again, and he wondered if maybe this was it: this was how fate was trying to kill him, because he’d wake up tomorrow and she’d be gone, or he’d wake up right now and this whole afternoon would have been a dream.

Percy banged on the locked door for the third time. “Uncle Logan! Bored!”

“Watch more TV,” Logan shouted, feeling Veronica shake with laughter under him.

“You’re going to have to feed him eventually,” she said, amused.

He bit her shoulder lightly and he felt her hips shift. “Nah. We have a system. I put a sock on the door if I’m in here with a lady friend.”

“Great,” she said sardonically, and pushed him away gently.

“Ok, too soon to joke about lady friends,” Logan muttered, falling to his side.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just – ” she sat up and took his hand, and butterflies started to ricochet off his stomach lining. She had her Serious Discussion face on, and he couldn’t remember a Serious Discussion that had ever ended well for him.

She traced patterns over the back of his fingers. “I was thinking maybe Percy would be better off here. Neptune isn’t really…the healthiest environment, and also…maybe I’ve had enough of Neptune.” She looked at him expectantly.

“You want to move to LA?” he asked dumbly. “You want to move in with me?”

“Well, not at first,” she said quickly. “But it’s not too far from my dad. I could get a job here and we could see how things go…”

“Things are going to go just fine,” he said, pulling her on top of him. She stretched languidly against him, and he thought she might be trying to kill him, too, because he was getting hard again, and he was already exhausted.

“Jesus,” she said. She reached out and actually knocked on the wood of his bedside table. “Don’t say that. It makes me all jumpy.”

“Hear me out,” he said. “If you move in right away, we could do this – ” he stretched up and kissed her, “all the time. Plus, do you know how expensive it is to keep two cars in LA?”

“Now he’s worried about money,” she said fondly. “Does that mean you’re giving up your car?”

“Or you could give up yours,” he pointed out.

“Nope.”

“Ah.” He smiled knowingly. “I see you’ve gotten attached to my little gift.”

She flicked a thumb over his nipple. “I traded it in for a hybrid and bought some new camera equipment. Really, sometimes it’s like you don’t know me at all.”

He slid a leg up between hers and she inhaled sharply. “I want you to move in,” he said seriously. “But not until you’re ready. Although…feel free to put away my groceries any time. Especially if you’re wearing another see-through dress.”

She had the grace to blush. “So you did wear that little number for my benefit,” he exclaimed. “I knew it.”

“I thought it might soften you up,” she admitted, and laid her head down on his chest. He could feel her soft breath coming in and out against his skin, and he was pretty sure this was the best it was ever going to be for him.

And then she went and proved him wrong.

“You know that I love you, right?” she asked softly, and his stomach turned over. “I know I don’t say it,” she continued, “but…I want you to know.” Logan started to tremble. He tried to make his body stay still, but he was just shaking with the most terrifying exhilaration he’d ever felt.

She sensed it, of course. She lifted her head, and there must have been something in his eyes, because she put a concerned palm against his cheek. “I do. I did back then, too. I want you to at least know that.”

“I do now,” he managed, and kissed her again.


End file.
